Mennonite Weekly Review

The Mennonite Church USA Executive Board endorsed a health care access plan to share insurance costs during its Sept. 18-20 meeting in Philadelphia and recommended that congregations and agencies enroll pastors and church workers.

The board also took action on leadership development, decreased the time frame for a Spanish-language resource initiative and met with Philadelphia Mennonites. The Executive Board discussed its action to streamline MC USA organization but has not made any changes since June.

Keith Harder, Healthcare Access for Church Workers project director for Executive Leadership, said in a phone interview the project developed a health care plan for all pastors, church workers, and conference and church agency employees. A resolution at the July 2007 San Jose convention requested the Executive Board create and implement such a plan.

“We’re particularly concerned that we find a way to respond to those who currently have no insurance coverage,” Harder said. “We also are keenly aware of people who have preexisting conditions.”

Harder estimates between 80 and 100 Mennonite pastors do not have health insurance, many of them people of color leading urban congregations that are among the fastest growing in MC USA, he said.

To address all those concerns, the plan includes three areas: one that provides insurance, one that shares costs of guaranteeing coverage and one that raises money to subsidize congregations that can’t afford insurance for staff.

The plan would include all areas of coverage — including maternity and mental health — and would be a high-deductible plan. Congregations could set up health savings or health reimbursement accounts to cover those costs for the individual.

Through a special agreement, Blue Cross Blue Shield will process claims and discounts, giving participants access to nationwide preferred provider discounts, through which doctors and other health care providers agree to accept set payments. Mennonite Mutual Aid will administer enrollment and collect premiums for the plan, which will replace the current Covenant Mutual Benefit Plan in which some church workers participate.

To subsidize lower-income churches, the plan requires a contribution of $10 a year per regular attendee of each congregation, including the ones who receive subsidies for remaining costs.

To give an idea of what this would look like, Harder gave an example of a congregation in northern Indiana enrolling its full-time pastor — with a spouse and two children — in the plan, based on 2008 premiums. The insurance component $5600 and the mutual aid component to ensure coverage for all would cost $4700. If the congregation had 140 attendants, it would pay $1400 for subsidies, for a total cost of $11,800 a year.