I've now read the article "The realities of making a living on the homestead" (Jan/Feb 02, page 108) through twice, and I fail to get the point the author may have been trying to make.

I basically disagree with his first paragraph. Since when is homesteading equivalent to subsistance farming, which I roughtly equate to hand-to-mouth existance. No middle-class luxuries without working off the farm? I expect Joel Salatin would roll on the ground laughing at that statement. Sending children to college seems a moot point. If a child really wants to go to college they will find a way, and probably receive a better education as a result. Since when can homesteading be directly compared to the lifestyles of the Amish, Mennonites or Huterites? They choose to live the lifestyle they live and their doing without luxuries, such as electricity and telephones, doesn't mean their lifestyles are any less rich for them. Ask a realty agent if they have ever known of one of these families buying a farm for other than cash. Many have on the farm jobs, such as carpentry, sawmills, market gardens or making sorgham molasses which provide the income needed without having to work off the farm. Their extremely hard work is seasonal for the most part.

If his point was it will probably be necessary for at least one person on the homestead having an outside job until retirement income kicks in, he sure took a long time to say it.

Besides, for how many is access to health insurance just as an important aspect of employment as the wages themselves.

What am I missing here?

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), December 15, 2001

Answers

Response to Article on "The realities of making a living on the homestead"

Hi Ken, no writer here so I am not going to comment on the man's writing style, but I can tell you we would have been full-time (both of us) on the homestead a long time ago if it were not for access to health insurance. We simply can not afford it with what we make on the homestead, no matter what we do.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), December 15, 2001.

Response to Article on "The realities of making a living on the homestead"

Thanks Ken, My wife and I have been married thirty three years and have always had a milk cow, pigs, chickens, and now rabbits. I guess we were homesteaders and didn't know it. Our children grew up here and went to the same school and on to service and collage. My oldest son is in Boston getting his PHD in computer science. Our second son was in the Army for eleven years and was stationed at the Pentagon working in the same area that the plane hit. He was tired of Army life and he got four jour months before the crash. Our daughter is a RN and now she is getting her Masters and is going to be a Nurse Practitioner. Our last son is a electrician. Being a homesteader is not staying in the woods and not coming out. What is our lifestyle any way?, dose it have an effect on our children. I believe it dose. The kids love coming home and helping where ever they can. Now I have grand children going to the barn to feed calves and help water pigs and gather eggs. In closing our daughter the nurse said at supper with guest at the table, You know what you call the Easter Bunny on the farm? supper. It is a great life. Thanks again, Jim

-- Jim Raymond (jimr@terraworld.net), December 15, 2001.

Response to Article on "The realities of making a living on the homestead"

Health care is an issue now, and will be even more of an issue in the future. You might be healthy today, but get into a car crash tomorrow (and just your luck hit by someone with no insurance), or all of a sudden develop some illness. And, just wait until age catches up to you (as it will to all of us, barring unforseen circumstances). Just as defined benefit plans have gone by the wayside for the most part, watch for healthcare plans to go too. Look at the proliferation of flexible spending accounts for healthcare.

Even if you have retirement income (either other income and/or social security), Medicare pays for very little, so you are still stuck with buying some kind of supplemental insurance. From what I've read about the Amish and other similar religions, they kind of band together to take care of major medical expenses. The rest of us do not really have that option.

Access to healthcare is what needs to be fixed. People who do not smoke, drink or use drugs should not be paying higher costs because of those who do. People can choose not to indulge in those substances, and should pay higher rates until they get sober again (obviously, a baby whose mother smoked/drank/did drugs would be covered).

Inherited conditions should not be cause to raise premiums (you can't choose your parents). You shouldn't have to get a divorce to qualify for healthcare for an ill child.

I hate waiting periods for coverage, but those places that have short wait periods have a lot of people not paying for coverage (that would create funds to pay out on claims later) for a year or more, then jump in the (insurance) pool at the last minute and make a big claim. No business can survive in that kind of environment. I'm no fan of insurance companies, but they have to make a living too. Is national insurance the answer? Don't know. I like HMOs, but they may not be right for everyone.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), December 17, 2001.

Response to Article on "The realities of making a living on the homestead"

Health insurance is the reason I'm still working 25 miles away every day, and why my spouse is going back to school for the second time (to get a better job.) If we had some *affordable* basic health insurance, we could live pretty much off our land (if we chose to.) If you stop to think about it, one big reason for NOT nationalizing health care in the U.S. must be that the economy would come to a screaching halt if everyone didn't have to have a paying job just to stay pay the "protection money" that the insurance industry blackmails us for. Sheesh.....

-- sheepish (WA) (the_original_sheepish@hotmail.com), December 18, 2001.

Response to Article on "The realities of making a living on the homestead"

Sheepish, you do make an interesting point. But national healthcare is funded by taxes (at least I think that's how other countries fund it). How would it be funded here, and how would you get everyone to pay a little something into the fund?

We already have people who don't pay income tax, or state taxes, with the exception of perhaps sales taxes, and maybe some property tax through rent (but depending on the area rents will barely cover the principal on the loan, never mind everything else). I am a firm believer in that everyone should pay at least something--when you have to pay for something, you tend to appreciate it more.

It is really a shame when you have to pay $3 for an aspirin in the hospital because you have insurance, and someone who doesn't gets a complete free ride, and has no compunctions whatsoever about not paying anything toward the bill.

I think also that instead of paying people for working at nonprofits, the organizations should offer paid healthcare instead, for working at least 80 hours a month. Less accounting for the organization, and it would help out a lot of people who might not otherwise have access to health insurance.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), December 18, 2001.

I was at the Dr.'s yesterday and was talking with a woman in her early 60's who pays 2200.00 every 3 months for her and her husband .How the heck are people suppose to eat ???????

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@hotmail.com), December 18, 2001.

I changed the title of this thread to better reflect contents.

National health insurance died, probably for a long time, when Hillary Clinton was given the job of submitting a plan to Congress. It was so complicated, cumbersome and bureaucratic no one in Congress wanted anything to do with it.

I am only familiar with the Federal Government's Health Benefits System. Each year each federal employee is given a choice of something like 50-60 different plans, and most offer High - Self, High - Family, Low - Self and Low - Family options which let you decide the level of coverage desired. Some offer better dental plans, etc. than others. Once a year there is an open season to change plans or options. The insurance companies themselves administer it with very little government involvement other than their paying their share.

I currently pay $102 a month for a comprehensive health care package (High - Self). I was able to retain it when I retired.

This is the same plan Congress itself has. Why it wasn't considered as a national health care option is beyond me.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), December 18, 2001.

Ken, sorry I muddied the waters a bit. I do apologize. The federal system is good--no one has to answer any questions, you just get covered, and because the government (which for this discussion also includes the postal service) is so huge, they can negotiate good deals on the coverage. Also, even if you only work part-time, you are still covered, which is really nice.

For other jobs, though, anything can disqualify anyone from getting health insurance (though not usually the employee) because they do ask questions, and sometimes may even require physicals, etc. for family members. That is my main gripe. Other than the three "controllable" issues I mentioned above, you shouldn't have to provide any health history in order to get health insurance. I think a lot of people would be happy enough with a minimum-wage part-time job if it came with health benefits, especially if they were on limited retirement funds.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), December 18, 2001.

Be careful about advocating national health. I just returned from Germany (taxes in excess of 50% to cover "social programs) and my wife almost died because the national health program is so poor. All we heard was that Germany had the best doctors in Europe. I feel very sorry for those millions of Europeans paying huge amounts to get so little. The doctors don't care if you get better or not, since they get paid the same no matter what happens to you. Canadians come to the US and pay for medical treatments because the backlog is so long to get treatment that many die on the list. Is that what you want for your children? Not me.

-- Chris Tomlinson (horsewhisper411@hotmail.com), December 18, 2001.

I liked Kaiser (HMO) when I had it, especially for well-baby care (you'd get letters telling you what shots were due when, for instance), and others in my family are also pleased with it. Chris, a completely state-run system would not be my choice--I had in mind more of a regulated monopoly system.

However, I will say this: we are partly responsible for the quality of healthcare we receive. That means writing questions down before you see the doctor, changing them if need be (I knew someone at work who went through every sports medicine doctor at Kaiser before she got the right one for her), etc.

Also, we have something now that we didn't have before--the internet. Oh sure, some of it is not to be taken seriously, but there IS a wealth of information out there, that the public didn't have access to before. I mean, how many of us subscribe to The Journal of the American Medical Association or The Lancet? Quite often doctors (even private pay doctors) cannot keep up with all of the latest and greatest, so with our own research we can help out a bit. Not a solution of course, but every little bit helps.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), December 19, 2001.

My only exposure to socialized medicine was when I was in Croatia. From what I could determine, you cannot make an appointment for services in advance. You just went, signed up and waited for the next available doctor. Most of the doctors have private clinics on the side where they charge and make the majority of their income. The work they do for the state is basically in return for their education.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), December 20, 2001.

The reason Congress avoided coming up with a national health program is because of the money and influence (pardon the redundancy) of the insurance companies. Complexity of bureaucracy has never been a problem for legislators (see IRS for more details...) If we were to eliminate the middlemen -- insurance companies -- health care would be affordable. As for people having a free ride, yes, there are those people, there will always be those people. It boggles my mind how people (my stepson, for instance) have no compunction about racking up bills they have no intention of paying. On the other hand, if the middlemen were eliminated, the costs/charges would be so substantially lower that many of those who default now would not have to. And when you think about it, it is the insurance companies which are really getting the free ride. As long as people only think in terms of getting or providing medical INSURANCE rather than HEALTH CARE, our system has no hope of improving, because then we are trying to find a way to continue to support the insurance industry, instead of providing a structure by which to maintain the health of our people.

I think the idea of nonprofits paying their volunteers with health care is a terrific idea!

-- snoozy (bunny@northsound.net), December 20, 2001.

I've been exceptionally busy lately and just checked back on this thread. I don't have a solution. I do think most healthcare coverage is beyond being affordable for most folks, unless an employer pays for some of it (as a benefit). That makes me wonder how it all fits together: the insurance companies get their money; the employers have a capture work force, etc. The hospitals and docs and getting less, and the citizens are forced to work. The employers, though, are having to deal with rising costs, too. So who benefits from all of this?

I like having a good healthcare plan...enough to work at a job all day to continue my coverage. But there has to be a better way. And I agree, anything this cumbersome has got to have a lot of waste using up some of the money. I really dislike having fewer and fewer choices, other than risking not having coverage.

-- sheepish (WA) (the_original_sheepish@Hotmail.com), December 20, 2001.