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The Access Project, a Boston-based research affiliate of the Schneider Institute for Health Policy at Brandeis University recently released a report detailing the health insurance status of non-corporate farm and ranch operators in the states of Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

Findings from these seven states include:

Nearly all farm and ranch households have health insurance and are insured at higher rates than the nation as a whole. Over 90 percent of respondents said all members of their household were continuously insured in the past year. That compares to 72 percent of adults nationally.

Most health insurance comes from off-farm or ranch sources. More than half said their household’s health insurance came from off-farm or ranch employment. That suggests that such jobs are crucial to both the financial and physical health of farm and ranch families and that rural development initiatives are vital to everyone in rural America.

Farm and ranch families are much more dependent on individual, non-group healthcare plans. Over one-third of farm and ranch families purchase individual health insurance policies, about four times the national average. This has significant consequences since individual policies typically offer less coverage at higher premium and out-of-pocket costs.

Many farm and ranch families experience healthcare-related financial burdens. Nearly a quarter of respondents said that healthcare expenses contributed to household financial problems, and 20 percent have outstanding medical debt. Both findings are comparable to national averages despite the fact the survey and other data found farm and ranch households are insured at higher rates and have higher household incomes than national averages.

A significant number of households delay healthcare due to cost. About 20 percent said a household member delayed seeking healthcare, primarily because of cost. That figure is lower than the national average.

While this report contains encouraging findings concerning farm and ranch families, it also shows potential for major healthcare problems in rural America. Farm and ranch families are dependent on off-farm or ranch jobs that are increasingly rare and increasingly without health insurance benefits. Farm and ranch households are also dramatically more dependent on an individual, non-group health insurance market that provides less coverage at greater cost.

Combined with the greater age of farmers and ranchers and the greater prevalence of workplace injuries on farms and ranches, the healthcare status of many rural households is indeed tenuous. How policy solutions to the nation’s healthcare issues affect all rural self-employed and rural people with fewer resources are considerations policymakers must consider.

The full report can be seen at www.accessproject.org/adobe/issue_brief_no_1.pdf .

Contact: Jon Bailey jonb@cfra.org or 402.687.2103 x 1013, for more information on rural health insurance issues.