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A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to treat membership in a health care sharing ministry as a medical expense, and for other purposes.
To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to treat membership in a health care sharing ministry as a medical expense, and for other purposes.
Summary
This bill amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow membership in health care sharing ministries to be treated as a deductible medical expense. The bill specifies that both the shared medical expenses and administrative fees paid to a health care sharing ministry qualify as medical expenses under the tax code. The bill also adds a new provision clarifying that health care sharing ministries are not to be treated as health plans or insurance for purposes of federal tax law. The changes are effective for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2025. The bill does not alter how health care sharing ministries operate, but rather how they are treated for federal income tax purposes.
AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.
Sponsor (1)
- Sen. Budd, Ted [R-NC] (R-NC)
Actions (2)
- Feb 20, 2025 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance. · senate
- Feb 20, 2025 Introduced in Senate
Similar bills (6)
Bills with similar text or summary — includes reintroductions across Congresses. Ranked by semantic similarity of the bill text (computed locally); a neutral discovery aid, not a claim the bills are duplicates.
Full text
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
February 20, 2025
Mr. Budd introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance
A BILL
To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to treat membership in a health care sharing ministry as a medical expense, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. TREATMENT OF HEALTH CARE SHARING MINISTRIES AS A MEDICAL EXPENSE AND NOT AS INSURANCE.
(a) Treatment as a Medical Expense.—Section 213(d)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by striking “or” at the end of subparagraph (C), by striking the period at the end of subparagraph
(D) and inserting “, or”, and by adding at the end the following new subparagraph:
“(E) for membership in a health care sharing ministry (as defined in section 5000A(d)(2)(B)(ii) without regard to subclause (IV) thereof), including—
“(i) the sharing of medical expenses with respect to such ministry, and
“(ii) the payment of administrative fees of such ministry.”.
(b) Health Care Sharing Ministry Not Treated as a Health Plan or Insurance.—
(1) In general.—Chapter 79 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by inserting after section 7702B the following new section:
“SEC. 7702C. TREATMENT OF HEALTH CARE SHARING MINISTRIES.
“For purposes of this title, a health care sharing ministry (as defined in section 5000A(d)(2)(B)(ii) without regard to subclause (IV) thereof) shall not be treated as a health plan or as insurance.”.
(2) Clerical amendment.—The table of sections for chapter 79 of such Code is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 7702B the following new item:
“Sec. 7702C. Treatment of health care sharing ministries.”.
(c) Effective Date.—The amendments made by this section shall apply to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2025. <all>
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