Health-care costs mean going into debt for one in five farmers, survey says

A survey conducted by the Access Project and the University of North Dakota found just 5 percent of farm and ranch households lacked health coverage, but about 20 percent of respondents said they had to take on debt in 2006 to make payments for health expenses, reports Julius Karash of The Kansas City Star.

With help from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, the survey went to 2,000 small farm operators in Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and the Dakotas. It found that about one-third of respondents bought individual health-insurance policies, far higher than the 8 percent nationally who are covered by individual policies, Karash reports.

“Farmers and ranchers have more financial resources than many other rural Americans,” Bill Lottero of the Access Project said in a statement accompanying the report. “It’s clear that middle-class folks with health insurance are feeling the pinch of spiraling premiums and medical costs.”

Alan Morgan, chief executive officer of the National Rural Health Association, an advocacy group, said the less comprehensive policies used by many farmers mean they wait to seek care and when they finally do, the delay equals an even greater cost. “The insurance crisis impacts everyone, but for farmers it’s particularly an acute problem,” Morgan told Karash. “They usually have some form of health-insurance policy. But with high deductibles and co-pays, it’s not a workable product.” (Read more)