Health insurance woes add to the risky business of farming

There are many challenges to farming for a living: It's often grueling work that relies on unpredictable factors such as weather and global market prices. But one aspect that's often ignored is the cost of health care.  A University of Vermont researcher found that nationally, most farmers cited health care costs as a top concern. Shoshanah Inwood is a rural sociologist at UVM. She has been studying the aging and shrinking farm population, and what components are needed to build a prosperous farm economy. Inwood says she hadn't thought about health care in particular as a factor until she conducted an unrelated survey in 2007 of farmers working the land in areas facing population growth and development pressures. The survey asked, "What are the issues affecting the future of your farm?"  "And we assumed when we got that survey back, we would get things like the cost of land, the cost of inputs, neighbors. The number one issue facing farmers was the cost of health insurance. They identified that as the biggest threat to their farm," she said.  Inwood says this held true for small and large farms: Two-thirds of commercial farmers cited the cost of health insurance as the biggest threat. Typically, strategies to build a robust farming industry have focused on access to land, capital and changes to market infrastructure. "But then you ask people, 'Well, how many people know a farmer that has an injury? Or a farm family that has a chronic health issue? Or a mental health issue?' And everybody's hand goes up," Inwood said. "And that's the one issue we really never talk about, are some of those social needs that farm families have."  While it may be underrepresented in farm planning discussions, on the farm, families are talking about it. Take Taylor Hutchinson and Jake Mendell. The two fell in love with farming — and each other — on a small educational farm in California. When the two decided to take the plunge and start their own farm, they decided to head back east to Jake's hometown area. Over the past three years they've transformed three acres of his family's land in Starksboro, Vt., into a small farm business, selling vegetables, eggs and some meat through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).  Access to free land puts them well ahead of many starting farmers, financially. But one thing they didn't initially factor into their business budget was health insurance.  "We both came of age at the beginning of the Affordable Care Act. It's not something that we've really had to think about, paying in full for a health insurance plan," says Mendell.  By "coming of age," he means he aged off his parents' health insurance at 26. Mendell was able to stay on his parents' plan beyond college under a provision in the Affordable Care Act. Then he switched onto a heavily subsidized plan through Vermont Health Connect. His partner, Taylor Hutchinson, is covered by Medicaid because her income falls just below the threshold. "It's a very fine line for me personally, that I'm skating under right now," Hutchinson said.With government assistance, right now health insurance is not among their highest expenses. But that all could change. If their income grows, Hutchinson would no longer eligible for Medicaid. Or if health care policy changes, their subsidies could go away.