Despite having continuous health insurance, 17% of Kansas farmers report having medical debt, according to a report by the Boston-based Access Project. Among individuals under age 65, however, 29% said they had medical debt, compared with only 5% of those age 65 and older. The median amount of medical debt was $2,500. Many respondents with debt reported going without care to avoid accruing new debt, and many struggled to pay down their bills using savings and by transferring debt to credit cards. According to the report, approaches that advocate shifting more of the costs of health care onto policyholders may leave increasing numbers of insured people at risk for financial difficulty. “We were surprised to learn that so many hard-working farm families that thought they were protected by their health insurance had fallen into medical debt,” said William Lottero, an analyst with the Access Project.
