A Third Way: How Cedar Health Alliance Is Different from Other Church Health Plans

If you have ever tried to choose a health plan for your church staff, you have probably felt like you were standing between two extremes.

On one end, you have the traditional church health plans like Guidestone and Portico. On the other, you have Christian sharing ministries like MediShare and Samaritan. Both can serve a purpose, but neither may feel like the right fit for your church.

Cedar Health Alliance was built to be a third way.

Instead of repackaging the old model or asking you to jump all the way into a sharing arrangement, CHA is designed as a hybrid. It is a health plan specifically created for churches that combines the financial strength of a group plan with a different, more sustainable way of paying for care.

“There are two bookends in the church market,” explains Josiah Allis, who leads Design Health and helped design Cedar Health Alliance. “On one side you have traditional church health plans that are basically repackaged big carrier plans. On the other side you have sharing ministries. Cedar Health Alliance is designed to fill the gap in the middle.”

The Two Bookends: What Churches See Today

Bookend 1: Traditional Church Health Plans

Most churches are familiar with health plans that look and feel like big carrier insurance, sometimes branded for the faith community.

Under the hood, these plans usually:

• Plug into a national PPO network such as Blue Cross, United or Cigna
• Use a pharmacy benefit manager owned by those same large carriers
• Inherit the same underlying high unit costs that are driving healthcare inflation everywhere else

You get the basic predictability of a major medical plan, but you also inherit the same cost pressures that are pushing premiums higher year after year.

Bookend 2: Christian Sharing Ministries

On the other side are Christian sharing ministries where members voluntarily share each other’s medical expenses based on shared beliefs.

These models:

• Are not insurance
• Can be more affordable for some families
• Often feel like a big leap for a church that wants to provide a clear, structured benefit to its staff

For many churches, this jump from a fully insured plan to a sharing community feels too risky or too unfamiliar.

The Gap in the Middle: Where Cedar Health Alliance Lives

Between those two bookends, traditional PPO based plans on one side and sharing ministries on the other, there has not been much for churches.

That is the gap Cedar Health Alliance was built to fill.

Cedar Health Alliance is:

• Not a repackaged big carrier PPO plan lightly rebranded for churches
• Not a sharing ministry that replaces insurance with voluntary sharing
• A hybrid health plan specifically designed for churches and faith based employers with a different cost structure under the hood

Instead of copying the old model and hoping for better results, CHA rethinks how care is purchased and paid for.

“What we are not doing is repackaging what is already in the market and calling it a plan for churches,” says Allis. “This is built for churches and built for the faith based community, but it is not just Guidestone or Portico with a different label and it is not MediShare. It really is a third option.”

Stability by Design, Not “Too Good to Be True” Savings

Church leaders consistently say the same thing: they do not just want something cheaper this year. They want something they can rely on.

In the past, some plans aimed at churches have tried to win by undercutting premiums, coming in 20 to 30 percent below what a church is currently paying. The problem is that those plans are often underpriced. Within 12 to 18 months, the math catches up, claims exceed expectations and premiums spike. Churches feel burned.

Cedar Health Alliance was not built that way.

Instead of chasing dramatic, temporary discounts, CHA is designed for what the team calls stability by design.

“We are not going to drop premiums just to win business and then hope for the best,” says Drew Kallestad, founder of Agility Innovation Partners and a co designer of the CHA model. “In the past, you could get a good year if the client did two out of five smart things. With Cedar Health Alliance we have built in all five. The plan is designed to win, so the stability is not random. The stability is by design.”

Instead of promising big upfront cuts, CHA:

• Targets premiums that are at or just below what many churches are paying today
• Builds in a different cost engine underneath those premiums through:
  • Direct contracts for care that can be significantly lower than typical PPO rates
  • An ethical pharmacy model instead of a carrier owned PBM
  • A member owned captive structure that aligns the plan with the churches it serves

The goal is not a one year deal. The goal is a health plan that a church can live with and grow with for the long haul.

Affordability That Reaches the Person in the Pew

Most conversations about health plans focus on the premium. What is it going to cost the church each month?

That matters. But it is only half the story.

Across the benefits world, there is a quieter crisis:

• Many employees cannot afford to use the health plan they are paying for
• Deductibles and out of pocket costs are so high that staff and families avoid seeing a doctor or delay needed care
• A large share of people on health plans have less than 1,000 dollars saved for medical expenses, while many plans require several thousand dollars out of pocket before coverage really kicks in

A church may be doing the right thing by offering a plan, but staff may still be avoiding care because they are afraid of the bill.

Cedar Health Alliance was built to tackle this head on.

CHA is designed so that staff and families do not just have an ID card. They have real access to care they can afford to use through:

• No cost pathways to primary care
• No cost options for many surgeries when done through specific partners
• No cost medications in key categories

Allis points to some sobering numbers from the broader market.

“Seventy percent of employees in benefit plans cannot afford to use the benefit they are paying for,” he says. “About half of people on a health plan have less than 1,000 dollars saved for medical expenses. Our goal with Cedar Health is to solve that. We want people to be able to afford the plan and afford to use it.”

In other words, CHA is focused on the total cost of care, not just the premium line item.

Making Hard Choices on High Cost Drugs to Protect the Whole Community

One of the most difficult parts of designing a sustainable health plan is how to handle specialty medications, the very expensive drugs often advertised on TV.

A few realities about these drugs:

• There are typically 50 to 70 of them on the market at any time
• They can cost 10,000 to 100,000 dollars per month
• Only about 1 to 2 percent of members use them, but they can dramatically drive up costs for everyone

Most traditional plans simply cover these drugs and then spread the cost across the entire population through higher premiums and deductibles.

Cedar Health Alliance makes a different choice.

CHA does not cover those ultra high cost, heavily advertised specialty drugs in the same way that traditional plans do. Instead, CHA uses lower cost therapeutic alternatives and tight clinical guidelines, for example focusing GLP 1 drugs on diabetics, not on weight loss trends.

“Those are like howitzers blowing holes in the boat,” Kallestad says. “The big carriers and PBMs are monetizing those drugs beyond belief. Our plan simply does not let them deal drugs on our corner. We use alternatives and we protect the churches from that kind of cost explosion.”

This is one of the key ways CHA protects the broader church community from runaway costs. It is a hard decision, but it is part of what allows the plan to focus resources where they will serve the most people most consistently.

A Plan Built for Churches, Owned by Churches

Cedar Health Alliance is being launched as a captive structure that, once established, will be owned by its member churches.

That matters for two reasons:

1. Alignment. The plan is designed around the needs and values of churches and their staff, not outside investors.
2. Participation. Over time, churches have a real stake in how the plan is run and how savings are stewarded.

At launch, CHA is working to bring a handful of larger anchor churches on board to establish a solid, healthy foundation. From there, the goal is to welcome churches of all sizes into a community built on shared faith, shared stewardship and shared access to care.

Is Cedar Health Alliance Right for Your Church?

Cedar Health Alliance may be a fit if your church:

• Wants to move away from traditional plans that keep getting more expensive
• Is not comfortable jumping all the way to a sharing ministry
• Is looking for a faith aligned, financially thoughtful plan that balances stability with real access to care

It is not the right fit for every church. There is an underwriting process, and not every group will qualify. That is part of how CHA protects the long term health of the plan and the churches that depend on it.

But if you have felt stuck between the two bookends, traditional PPO based church plans on one side and sharing ministries on the other, Cedar Health Alliance might be the third way you have been looking for.

If you would like to explore whether CHA could be a good fit for your church, the next step is simple.

Start a conversation. We will help you understand how the plan works, what it would look like for your staff and budget, and whether this hybrid approach is right for your ministry.

Click Here and Get Started Today!