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Rural health care and the new law

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, with its broader health care coverage is going to help rural Americans. Vilsack says, “There are a lot of benefits in this law to folks who live in rural areas and obviously we want folks to take advantage of it. They look on the website, healthcare.gov, they might be surprised that they can find maybe insurance for as little as $100 a month.”

What about smaller farms and agribusinesses concerned about higher employee health care costs? Vilsack says there has been a delay in the implementation for smaller businesses so, in his words, there is time to adjust to the new system, adding, “Secondly, I think there’s also time to learn about the tax credits that are available to businesses. Oftentimes, when people are looking at the cost of healthcare they’re not factoring in the advantageous tax benefits that they get that will reduce the overall cost to them at the end of the day.”

Rural health care facilities, he says, will see relief from this new law,  “So, with the Affordable Care Act we’re now in a situation where our rural hospitals and clinics can be certain that people coming in for service will have insurance coverage. That will make it a little easier on their bottom line. We won’t see the transfer of responsibility from the uninsured to the insured for payment of health care costs for the uninsured as we did under the old system.”

Vilsakc says older and younger folks in rural America will see added benefits from the law, “Senior citizens, of course, we’ve got a great number of them living in rural communities, they’re going to see lower prescription drug costs. And, young parents on the farm who are wondering what their youngster who’s just graduating from college, or will be, what they’re going to do as they look for work.  They may get a job and may not have health care. They’ll be able to extend their coverage under the parents’ policy for, until the young person reaches age 26.”

Interview with Tom Vilsack, U.S. Ag Secretary (8:00 mp3

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