We have two choices in life – give and it will be given, or take before you are taken. It is either trust or distrust. Trust involves true simplicity, and this is the spirit of Occam’s razor, to “reduce needless redundancies,” to keep it simple.

   TEI Burden Sharing is a moral covenant between people of like mind who choose the power of giving and receiving mutual trust in matters of sharing burdensome medical costs, as opposed to the distrust of a legal contract.

   TEI Burden Sharing has the power to free physicians and other health care providers to give the best medical care, and where patients are freed to pay only the simple and true costs. It has the power to greatly reduce, even abolish, the onerous costs of governmental and/or corporate interference with the doctor-patient relationship.

   Those who participate in an oral agreement to become members of TEI Burden Sharing embrace the following six ethics:

1. Truth telling.
2. Trust and simplicity are the basis for a healthy life, and rooted in the biblical order of creation.
3. Trust and simplicity are first and best nurtured where human sexuality equals chastity outside of heterosexual faithful monogamous marriage, fidelity within, and parenthood based thereupon; where human life is affirmed fully from natural conception to natural death.
4. Healthy living includes no use of inhaled tobacco, illegal drugs or substances; and no abuse of legal drugs, substances or alcoholic beverages.
5. Healthy living means the pursuit of a wise diet, always preferring food and drink in their most natural state, of appropriate exercise, outdoor air and sunshine, and sufficient rest.
6. Healthy living gives deliberate priority to a philosophy of proactively strengthening the body's natural self-healing processes; and only as a last resort to reactively remove ill health by means of pharmaceuticals, surgery, radiation etc. Specifically, preventative measures are always embraced, and then the simplest, most natural and direct treatments for specific illnesses are embraced.

   TEI Burden Sharing is run by the Theological Education Institute (TEI), LLC, with the following nine guidelines, whereby money is pooled in a co-operative venture to share otherwise unmet burdensome medical expenses of fellow members:

1. Potential members are interviewed orally, come to an agreement on how to share these needs with fellow members, their amount of monthly planned giving into the system, and how to have their needs met; upon such agreement, they will then gain a personal TEI Burden Sharing representative through whom to go for all questions and needs.
2. Three months of this giving will go into the overhead expenses account before membership becomes active. The next 11 months of giving, paid on the 10th day of each month, goes into the medical expenses account; the 12th goes into the overhead account, and this will be the annual pace thereafter. This means that TEI Burden Sharing overhead equals 25 percent the first year, and 8.3 percent every year thereafter.
3. The overhead account and medical account are strictly separate and the funds will never commingle; the records of income, expenses and current amount of monies in the medical account will always be available to members, online and/or otherwise.
4. When members need to receive money for medical expenses per their agreements, they contact their representative, and it will be processed expeditiously. If there are excess monies in the medical account at the end of the month, they will remain there for the subsequent month(s).
5. If there is a shortage, a notice will be sent out to make it up with special gifts from the membership; if there still remains a shortage at the end of the calendar month, the due ratio (e.g., 95%) of all needs will be paid, and thus, the medical account will never go into the negative, and never carry any future debt to its members.
6. Members are free to choose their health care providers, and as well, over time, TEI Burden Sharing will build a professional list of member physicians and heath care providers whom it will recommend.
7. Members are free to discontinue membership at anytime, but will have to reach a new agreement in order to rejoin; those who fall short in their monthly planned giving will have to discontinue their membership or renegotiate a new agreement.
8. If a legitimate concern arises as to whether or not a member is consciously dishonoring the TEI Burden Sharing ethics, he or she will be contacted and an arrangement will be worked out relative to continued membership. If such a person is unsatisfied, an arrangement will be made in concert with Matthew 18:15-17 to resolve it.
9. Since TEI Burden Sharing is a moral covenant, rooted in oral agreement, it is not a written legal contract, and does not pretend to carry any legal indemnification. It is far deeper than that, rooted in the relational freedom of earned trust. Hence, any disputes between patient and provider lie outside the scope of TEI Burden Sharing. However, TEI Burden Sharing reserves the right to dismiss from membership anyone who fails to pursue and fulfill Matthew 18:15-17 in such matters -- whether patient or provider.

###

   Once this plan is well underway, with proven demographics, a second plan is envisioned for people who will not embrace the human sexuality ethos and/or healthy living goals; these people would become their own self-contained co-operative plan, where costs would be higher according to greater risks taken, but should be much lower than what is otherwise available due to the simplicity of overhead.