Prospective Plantings Report Due out Next Week
We will soon have an idea about the crops farmers intend to plant this spring. USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service surveyed a scientifically selected sample of 77-thousand farmers to not only determine what - but how much - they plan to put in the ground.
Experts are now preparing for the Prospective Plantings report - pouring over those thousands of surveys checking for errors and inaccuracies. Joe Prusacki is Director of the NASS Statistics Division. The operator knows how many acres are in the operation. We’ll when you add up the individual crops is it in alignment with how many acres are in the operation. You can’t have more planted areas of your individual crops than what’s in your operation. We check that sort of thing. We check for data-entry errors and things like that in the data.
USDA releases the Prospective Plantings report at 7:30 am Central time on Wednesday, March 31st.
Health Care Reform Explained
While some have welcomed the health care reform approved by Congress - others are angry. But according to Wisconsin 3rd District Congressman Ron Kind - the legislation significantly improves the current health care system without making radical changes to it...
It’s not a government take-over it’s not a single payer, in fact there’s not even a public option in these health insurance pools that we’re creating for farmers and small business owners to join. But, it is an important step in the right direction to make sure that all American’s have access affordable, quality, and secure health care coverage in their lives.
For some in agriculture - one concern is the requirement that businesses provide health insurance for their employees. Kind says it’s important to understand that businesses with 50 employees or less are exempt from that coverage requirement. Plus - he says the measure will make it more affordable for farmers and small businesses to obtain health coverage...
We’re going to create these health insurance exchanges that they can go to and then they can shop with a variety of competing health plans for their business with complete transparency so they’ll know what they’re going to get and exactly how much it’s going to cost and we’re going to couple it with significant tax credits to make it more affordable for family farmers to go out and obtain coverage.
Another concern is the mandate that everyone must have insurance - and the costs associated with that. Kind says those who don’t have employer-sponsored coverage can join the exchange, shop for a plan and receive affordability credits. He says the bill is empowering individuals to choose their health care coverage and the doctors they’ll see rather than allowing insurance companies to make those decisions for them...
Getting everyone into the insurance pool is important so that we can prohibit this policy of pre-existing conditions where insurance companies don’t cover people or children with pre-existing conditions. Or they drop people from coverage when they get sick or injured. This is going on today, and it’s affecting countless lives. For people that don’t have insurance today there’s going to be help to provide them with affordability tax credits that they can use to purchase the health care.
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