Include farmers in health care debate

By Jim Goodman

Our current health care system is crushing farmers. And the proposals under consideration in Congress won't give us the relief we need.

Farmers often depend on off-farm jobs to provide health insurance, if we can find them. But this takes us away from our calling. And anyway, those jobs are vanishing, and those that remain are cutting their health care benefits. Oh, we can try to find individual coverage, but the price is exorbitant.

Farmers have few options for health insurance, yet we desperately need comprehensive coverage. Farming is one of the most dangerous occupations in America. Many of us have pre-existing conditions and we are nearing an average age of 58 years.

Farmers and ranchers are four times as likely as urban Americans to be underinsured, notes the Center for Rural Affairs.

House Democrats exulted over their 1,018-page health care reform bill. The best part is an amendment by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, that would allow states to experiment with their own single-payer health care plans.

But that's not likely to fly in the Senate.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., says single-payer health care “is off the table.” It is especially galling that Baucus, from such a rural state, one that would benefit most from a single-payer plan, is opposed to any discussion. It's also distressing that President Obama has distanced himself from single payer as fast as he could, even though a February CNN poll showed 72 percent favored a government-controlled plan.

The insurance companies, in hopes of killing single payer, say they are willing to cover those with “pre-existing conditions” - provided everyone buys their health insurance. They're licking their chops at signing up an additional 46 million people, under orders of the government. Still, they say, “Trust us.” Trust an industry that employs an army of claims deniers and other administrative personnel whose numbers have grown 25 times faster than the number of physicians in the United States over the past 30 years?

Without a public option, much less without single payer, farmers and the self-employed would be, at best, underinsured - or fined for not having private insurance.

We can't keep falling for that same old line from the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry. They peddle it for a reason: It keeps them rolling in profits - and keeps us at their mercy.

Jim Goodman is a farmer and journalist from Wonewoc, Wis. He also is a WK Kellogg/Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy Food and Society Policy Fellow. More information at www.iatp.org