Sandhusker
Well-known member
About one-fifth of farmers and ranchers dipped into savings or borrowed money to help pay for medical costs in 2006, according to a broad seven-state survey of health care costs in the agriculture community.
The survey of more than 2,000 farm and ranch families indicated that more than 95 percent had health insurance coverage in the last year, a higher percentage than Americans as a whole.
More than half of farmers acquire health insurance through family plans offered by companies where a family member has an off-the-farm job, said Alana Knudsen of the Center for Rural Health at the University of North Dakota and a co-author of the report.
But 36 percent buy individual plans, pay higher premiums, have higher deductibles and receive fewer benefits. This leads to financial strains, according to Knudsen and other authors.
Co-authoring the report were Bill Lottero, Carol Pryor and Mark Rukavina of the Access Project, a Boston-based resource center for improving health care availability, and Jeffrey Prottas of Brandeis University.
Funding was provided by several organizations, including the Nebraska Office of Rural Health.
Sponsors released the report during a telephone conference Thursday.
Yvette Oloff, a farmer from Persia, Iowa, who suffers from a lung ailment, said her family pays $10,000 per year in premiums for an insurance policy that excludes her condition from coverage and has $1,500 in deductibles.
"I simply do not understand why the costs are so high when the coverage does not cover half of my body," she said during the telephone conference.
The Oloff family is paying off $24,000 in medical debt.
Survey data indicating that 20 percent of farmers and ranchers have debt from medical bills were "troubling," considering that most of the people are fully insured, said Lottero, a project manager for the Access Project's rural health care initiative.
"The implications of this must be factored into policy decisions," Lottero said.
The survey of more than 2,000 farm and ranch families indicated that more than 95 percent had health insurance coverage in the last year, a higher percentage than Americans as a whole.
More than half of farmers acquire health insurance through family plans offered by companies where a family member has an off-the-farm job, said Alana Knudsen of the Center for Rural Health at the University of North Dakota and a co-author of the report.
But 36 percent buy individual plans, pay higher premiums, have higher deductibles and receive fewer benefits. This leads to financial strains, according to Knudsen and other authors.
Co-authoring the report were Bill Lottero, Carol Pryor and Mark Rukavina of the Access Project, a Boston-based resource center for improving health care availability, and Jeffrey Prottas of Brandeis University.
Funding was provided by several organizations, including the Nebraska Office of Rural Health.
Sponsors released the report during a telephone conference Thursday.
Yvette Oloff, a farmer from Persia, Iowa, who suffers from a lung ailment, said her family pays $10,000 per year in premiums for an insurance policy that excludes her condition from coverage and has $1,500 in deductibles.
"I simply do not understand why the costs are so high when the coverage does not cover half of my body," she said during the telephone conference.
The Oloff family is paying off $24,000 in medical debt.
Survey data indicating that 20 percent of farmers and ranchers have debt from medical bills were "troubling," considering that most of the people are fully insured, said Lottero, a project manager for the Access Project's rural health care initiative.
"The implications of this must be factored into policy decisions," Lottero said.