Joni Ernst: “as I visit with farmers, traveling river to river across Iowa, I hear all too often about the crushing weight of…”

“as I visit with farmers, traveling river to river across Iowa, I hear all too often about the crushing weight of healthcare costs on farm families. The ``Unaffordable Care Act's'' one-size-fits-none model ignored the realities of self-employment, seasonal cash flow, and the absence of large corporate employers in farm country. Spouses, who are often a family farm's bookkeeper, mechanic, veterinarian--many, many jobs all rolled into one--have been forced to take off-farm jobs solely to latch on to employer-sponsored coverage. This is what has happened in my own farm family. My brother and my sister are both type 1 diabetics. Both of them have had to find jobs off of the farm for employer-sponsored healthcare. That means 40 to 60 hours a week away from the very enterprise they are trying to preserve for the next generation. Democrats in Congress branded ObamaCare as a chance to bend the cost curve downward. It turns out the only thing it is bending downward are the bottom lines of farmers across Iowa. And the numbers don't lie. Farmers and small businesses are subsidizing a broken system that doesn't serve them. Rural America needs solutions that don't force spouses to find off-farm work or forgo health insurance altogether.”