Christian's join. When you join you have to agree to not use tobacco, drugs and there is something in there about alcohol although I don't remember what it is (no big deal to me because I consume none of the above, ever).

You have to have a pastor of a church sign off for you before you are accepted. The pastor is basically vouching that you are a Christian (or at least act like a Christian is supposed to act, pretty tough for anyone other than God to truly judge that).

The concept is that as a whole, Christians are going to have lower health costs than the rest of the population because they will not partake in some of the more risky behaviors, and because as a group, we are praying for one another in their recovery process.

It does comply with the current law allowing you to be exempt from participating in health insurance.

I believe pre-existing problems (I know diabetes) prevents you from getting in. I would imagine cancer would be the same way but I don't know.

Anything I don't know is spelled out in the guidelines. It is written in plain language and can be read and understood in a couple of hours. It's only maybe 30-40 pages long and it's not in fine print, just normal paragraphs of readable language.

The guidelines are available to be downloaded on the Samaritan Ministries website.