As Harker writes, this is really not a big surprise as the NFU, according to Johnson, has “long supported ‘comprehensive, meaningful health care reform.’” Hoosier Ag Today writes Johnson even lobbied on behalf of the legislation. Johnson reportedly sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (MD) urging passage of the bill and essentially endorsing the Affordable Health Care for American Act.
“Johnson said the bill's public health insurance option will not only dramatically increase the availability of health care to producers, but provide competition in under populated areas that have been historically dominated by a very few number of private insurers.” The NFU’s 250,000 person membership is made up of farmers, ranchers, and rural residents.
Meanwhile, Lynda Waddington is reporting for the Iowa Independent that a white paper has been issued by The Iowa Policy Project (IPP) that highlights some issues with health care in rural areas. The paper, according to Waddington, “focuses on the disparities at play when rural residents seek health care insurance.”
According to the IPP study, roughly 20 percent of the nation’s uninsured live in rural areas. Additionally, because of the limited insurance purchasing opportunities, people in rural areas “are more likely than residents of urban areas to purchase their insurance on non-group, private markets where they typically pay higher costs.
““The situation really is not sustainable barring some sort of reform,” [according to Andrew Cannon, a research associate with IPP and the study’s author]. “What we’ve seen over the past 10 to 20 years is that medical inflation, and health insurance inflation in particular, far out-stripping wage inflation. So, health insurance costs are going up 7 to 8 percent each year for this population while their wages are increasing 3 percent, if that. This is especially true in a recession like we are going through now, where people’s wages are stagnant or decreasing and yet their health insurance cost is increasing by 7 or 8 percent. That just puts this on an unsustainable trajectory.”The Iowa Independent has reported that while the residents in rural areas have high poverty rates and low incomes, they still rarely meet the levels required for current public health options like Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Still, health care reform is far from being accomplished.
To read the Brownfield post click here.
To read the Hoosier Ag Today post click here.
To read the Iowa Independent article on rural health care click here.
Posted: 11/10/09
