Midwest farmers and ranchers struggle with the costs of health insurance.

Bill and Yvette Oloff have raised cattle on their farm in Persia, Iowa for almost 25 years. The family was lucky to have good insurance through Yvette’s off-farm job when she was diagnosed with bronchial cancer in 2001. When Yvette was unable to work due to her illness, her family maintained her coverage offered through the employer for as long as the law allowed. Once that ended, Yvette was shocked to learn that she could only buy insurance that excluded coverage for her past medical conditions.

“Premiums are outrageous!” Yvette exclaims. “We pay $10,000 per year.” During the past four years, the family has accumulated almost $30,000 in debt to their local bank to pay for farm expenses and insurance premiums. They have no savings and Yvette avoids care for her continued breathing problems:  “We cut back, stay home more, and borrow money.”

American farmers and ranchers are struggling to cope with escalating health care costs, according to a recent report issued by Alana Knudson, Ph.D., of the Center for Rural Health at the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences, with partners at Brandeis University and The Access Project. This study cautions that, as the ranks of the uninsured swell to 47 million, insurance alone may not be adequate to protect Americans from the burden of unaffordable health expenses. Ninety percent of the farmers and ranchers surveyed had health insurance; nonetheless, many depleted savings, incurred debt, and delayed seeking care due to medical costs and steep insurance premiums.

“Farmers and ranchers have more financial resources than many other rural Americans,” says Bill Lottero of the Access Project. “Middle class folks with health insurance are feeling the pinch of spiraling premiums and medical costs.” 
The report is the first in a series of issue briefs based on a 2007 survey of farm and ranch operators in seven Great Plains states: Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. The project contracted with the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service to survey more than 2,000 non-corporate farm and ranch operators (those operating as sole proprietors or partnerships).