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Group Presses for Health Care Reform
Published Wednesday, November 25, 2009 at 04:44 AM
National Farmers Union, ranchers and rural residents, have joined farm leaders from Arkansas, Maine and Nebraska to call on Congress to pass health care reform. An emphasis is being placed on the urgent need to protect family farms. NFU President Roger Johnson says - farmers often have to purchase insurance for themselves and their families in the individual market where premiums are higher. Also, farmers tend to be older and are more likely to suffer from chronic health conditions, and private insurers consider them to be in a high risk profession.

Insurance premiums on average have risen more than 75 percent from 2000 to 2007 in Arkansas, Louisiana, Maine and Nebraska. The increases are even greater in the individual and small group market available to most farmers. Also, there is a lack of competition in the health insurance market. And that’s threatening many farmers’ and ranchers’ livelihoods as they face medical bankruptcies or are forced to seek other work to gain insurance.

John Hansen, President of the Nebraska Farmers Union, says the questions on the table are: How do we bring competition and cost control to health care in Nebraska? If the public option is not the best way to solve the lack of competition problem, then what is the alternative? Hansen says, - no reform is not an answer we can afford. Individual, small-group and geographic rating reforms will make coverage better and policies cheaper for farmers, their families and their employees.

© 2008 The Nebraska Rural Radio Association. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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