Chris and Brenda Discuss the Inspiration to Start a Christian Healthcare Ministry
In a thought provoking discussion with Brenda Aiken from Mater Dei, Solidarity President Chris Faddis shares some of the personal reasons that propelled him towards the launch of Solidarity Health Share as a Christian Healthcare Ministry, as well as the importance of maintaining moral ethics in the medical field and beyond.
Interview Audio
Interview Transcription
Well, as we enter into a new year, we keep getting reminded that things have greatly increased in cost over the last year. And with healthcare costs rising as well, it leaves you with less money to spend on other needs. So what can we expect in the year ahead, especially with an election coming up as well? Joining me today is Chris Faddis, co-founder and president of Solidarity HealthShare a nonprofit healthcare sharing ministry, faithful to the moral teachings of the Catholic Church. Chris, thanks so much for joining us again in a brand new year, our first opportunity to talk. Good morning. Thanks for joining us.
Chris Faddis (00:38):
Yeah, great to talk to you, Brenda. As always. I hope you had a good Christmas and a good start to the year.
Brenda Aikin (00:48):
Well, we are all thankful having gotten through last week’s storm to be able to get back to normal somewhat, but you turn on the news and so much is focused on the upcoming election, and I do want to talk to you a little bit about how healthcare is going to play into that. But before we get to that, let’s just go back in time for a little bit and remind our listeners why you decided so many years ago to put your faith into God and found Solidarity HealthShare.
Chris Faddis (01:12):
Yeah, I mean, ultimately Brenda, the impetus certainly wasn’t of my own will. It was one of those situations where we were thrust into a healthcare situation in our own family. As many of your listeners probably remember, we lost my first wife to colon cancer in 2012. And when we were going through that journey for 17 months of treatment and dealing with all of the nightmare of the medical system and insurance, it coincided with a lot of other things like being able to fundraise a ton of money for my wife’s care in order to get her to specialists and advance an alternative therapies that she needed because the traditional routes weren’t working. She was diagnosed at stage four, so there wasn’t a whole lot of hope and we needed to do some other things. And we had this amazing experience of the Catholic and Christian community coming together and supporting our family.
(02:09):
And in those two circumstances, I think the Lord used that to open my eyes. And during some time of prayer actually for Pentecost Sunday, a Holy Spirit novena for Pentecost Sunday really kind of unveiled a vision for us of having a true alternative that would allow us to practice our faith to be good stewards of our family’s medical needs, but also to be able to be faithful in how we live our faith. And so we set out to do that and it took us some time to get live and get launched and get out there. We had to do a lot of things to make sure that we were doing it properly and through all their proper legal channels, but we did that. And to this day, we’re so blessed to be able to serve members in a way that allows them to share each other’s medical deals off out of this and immoral system that is truly unfortunately doing the enemy’s work in a lot of ways, but still give people access to good solid healthcare that they need for their families. And that’s why we started it, Brenda. That was it. Now there’s about 50 more reasons that the Lord has given me since the fight for price transparency and learning about how certain doctors and hospitals are pushing people to things like abortion and things. And so all of those reasons has continue to compound as to why we continue to be in this fight.
Brenda Aikin (03:36):
Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think that’s important for people to remember that why do we do the things that we do and why it’s so important to place our trust in God and asking him, God, what is your plan for me and what is it that you want me to do? In fact, many people are going to be asking themselves that as we are entering into this election year. Did you find that when you were founding Solidarity that you came across things where you were asked as a company to compromise the Catholic faith of your members? And did you have a difficulty like that?
Chris Faddis (04:11):
Yeah, I mean, those opportunities come all the time. There’s certainly ways in which we could have arranged things to maybe a appear Catholic or to a peer Christian, but ultimately do things another way. And one of those is just as simple as sometimes the difficult thing in what we do is sometimes we have to be the voice of no right. If something’s not okay by our values and we’re not going to share into a minute close expense, sometimes we have to say no. But then there’s also the opportunities. I mean, there’s plenty of opportunities for us to hide our Catholic values and market this as a secular product or program. And the reality is that that would take away the real truth and value for what we’re doing. There’s not a monetary motivation here. This is about serving our members and making sure that they have the care they need and that we’re giving them a way to share with each other’s medical bills.
(05:05):
And so there’s lots of opportunities like that where that come your way or different vendors or partners, organizations or even funding sources that would help make things easier. And so over time, we’ve really just, I think, grown and learned that ultimately at the end of the day, a lot of companies talk about core values and we really haven’t had a lot of focus on core values because our founding mission is rooted in the gospel of life and the teaching of the church and our values really are the virtues that God has given us. And so I think Pope Benedict tells us, Brenda, that there’s lots of ways that he talked about this idea that sometimes things need to get smaller, that the church might get smaller, but it’ll be more faithful, or that what God’s calling you to might be smaller, but it’s going to allow to live what he’s called you to. And I think that’s the lesson is that as much as we would love to grow, we want to serve as many peaceful people as we possibly can because we do things a certain way. It takes a lot more time to grow.
Brenda Aikin (06:11):
Chris Faddis is joining us today telling us more about how Solidarity HealthShare came to be and why he has decided to stand with God when it comes to their decision making. I love how you bring up Hope Benedict there because he talked about that remnant church, that smaller church, and I just like to say we might be smaller, but we are mighty. And you just kind take on what is before you, you are doing there at Solidarity. Now what is before all of us is an upcoming election, and there’s so many things to weigh, but we recognize that inflation is, there’s not a person unaffected by it, and our dollar doesn’t seem to buy as many groceries, especially with healthcare costs continuing to rise. Tell our listeners about what is happening with healthcare now and what we’ve got to look forward to and prepare for in 2024.
Chris Faddis (07:03):
Yeah, I mean, just like everything else that’s continuing to rise, of course, healthcare was on the rise every year before this inflation that we’re experiencing, but it certainly doesn’t help to have it keep happening. And now we’re at this historic rise of spending. Even Medicaid is up 9.6% with Medicare spending up 5.9%. And what’s interesting about that, Brenda, is those are rather controlled costs because with both Medicare and with Medicaid, the pricing that will be reimbursed is set by the government. And so there’s no ability for the hospital systems or the doctors to really mark that up. So in a controlled market environment, they’re still having these kind of surges. We’re seeing surges upwards of 17 to 20% in some sectors of the private healthcare market for actual expenses. I’m not even talking about insurance premiums, just actual expenses. And so that’s continuing. I think it’s continuing to make it harder on people.
(08:05):
Obviously people have their deductibles and those things to meet, and more and more people are struggling with that as these expenses go up, copays and health plans are going up, copays in pharmacy spend is going up. And so I think people are really starting to feel that burn, so to speak, of the price. I think in a lot of ways in the insurance market, we’re shielded from it. We only see the increase of the premium, which does matter, but most people kind of ignore it. We just pretend like that wasn’t money we ever had. But the reality is, it is our money. Even if your employer’s paying for it, it’s part of your pay. And so we should pay attention to that. So it’s definitely worth paying attention to. We’re happy to say that we are still able to maintain cost using our discounting and repricing methods that we use, and we’re still getting discounts upwards of 65% for our members on their medical bills. But again, that we still see the rise of course, because the overall charges were still higher. So even if we’re giving that discount, our costs are going up for our members as well. But I think it’s one of the reasons why I think we’re we’re so effective is because we go off of that baseline and understanding what the actual cost of care is, making sure the doctors and the physicians are paid well in the hospitals.
Brenda Aikin (09:21):
How are they going to find more information about Solidarity and get connected with one of your great team members?
Chris Faddis (09:27):
Yeah, I think definitely visit us at our website, solidarityhealth share.org. Dot org, solidarityhealthshare.org, and definitely call us at three one three four nine nine nine. We have a great team that’s there to answer your questions, and they’re just passionate people about what we do, and they do a great job of helping answer your questions, make sure it’s a good fit for you, and also explain some of the processes that I discussed on the air.
Brenda Aikin (09:55):
Oh, fantastic. And again, Chris, what you shared at the beginning about why you started Solidarity. We know that you join your life experience to what people might be suffering and going through now, and it is care and love and prayers that you offer for all of your members. So thank you again so much for joining us. God bless.
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Solidarity HealthShare is a non-profit healthcare sharing ministry rooted in the teachings of the Catholic Church. Established in 2016, we operate on the Catholic principles of solidarity and subsidiarity, in accordance with the Church’s commitment to promoting life-affirming, ethical healthcare.
We strive to provide an ethical, community-driven alternative to traditional health insurance. Through direct Member-to-Member sharing, Members are able to access quality healthcare services while preserving their family’s financial, physical, and spiritual health, all at once. Members never need to worry about their healthcare dollars funding immoral medical procedures. We promote a holistic approach to healthcare, emphasizing the importance of physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.
At the heart of our ministry’s mission to restore and rebuild an authentically Catholic healthcare culture in America is the recognition that every single person has inherent human dignity. We seek to promote healthcare that honors the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death.
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