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Survey: Health Care Costs Cause Financial Hardship for Farmers
According to the 2007 Health Insurance Survey of Farm and Ranch Operators, many farmers are experiencing financial hardship as a result of high health insurance premiums and other medical costs. The survey, produced by The Access Project and sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, collected data through a telephone survey of non-corporate farm and ranch operators in seven states.
The Access Project Survey found that:
- Forty-four percent of respondents reported spending more than 10 percent of their income on health insurance premiums and other medical costs, a marker of financially burdensome health care costs according to researchers.
- Twenty-three percent of respondents reported that health care costs contributed to financial problems for them or another household member.
- Respondents who reported financial problems on average spent 42 percent of their income on insurance premiums and out-of-pocket insurance costs.
- Over a quarter of respondents (26%) had to draw on resources to cover health care costs. Of those, 65 percent had to dip into family savings to pay for care, while 10 percent withdrew from their retirement accounts and 22 percent incurred or increased credit card debt.
Some of these difficulties may be a result of many farmers purchasing insurance on the individual market. Thirty-six percent of survey respondents had purchased health insurance on the individual market, compared to about 8 percent of insured Americans nationally. Farmers purchasing insurance on the individual market on average spent $4,359 more than those with insurance obtained through off-farm employment and $5,204 more than those insured through government-sponsored programs.
Read more about the 2007 Health Insurance Survey of Farm and Ranch Operators here.
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