The ninth Salus Health Care Forum was convened on January 8, 2025. In attendance were Mitch Applegate, William Bergquist, Jerome Fish, Bill Gillanders, Gay Teurman, Mark Vukalcic and Jack Westfall. The Trigger topic for this forum was provided by Jack Westfall who introduced opportunities and challenges associated with the US Government Fall Bill. In what ways has this bill impacted health care over the past nine decades and what can be done to reduce its negative impact on the health of mid-21st Century Americans?

In preparation for the Salus dialogue regarding the Farm Bill, Jack Westfall provided the following links to Internet documents concerning this bill:

7 minutes – general video about the farm bill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4mQyUOE_z0

4 min general video that talks about “bloated farm subsidies”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBMmQIvv5g0

10 min Ron Wyden dem Oregon house speech – excellent from a politician who will be voting on the farm bill. From 2012, but still relevant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdtKiKnDpok

Here is narrative based on the proceedings of this forum:

Jack

I will provide a summary statement regarding the farm bill and its impact on health–our trigger topic for today. the Farm Bill is $150 billion a year out of the federal government. It’s composed of three major components. One is crop insurance. One is to essentially subsidize farmer’s insurance. The U.S. government taxpayers are covering 75% of the farm insurance industry. This allows farmers to have insurance on their land, their crops, their animals. I want to make sure to introduce this concept, because I think it’s important for our future conversation.

The second part is a different kind of subsidy. It provides cash payments to farmers for purchase of their products. I provide a list of all the products. You may or may not be surprised by these. This second part also pays farmers to pull land out of production. It pays farmers to stop farming particular products on particular lands. This is very prominent in areas of the country that have a lot of erosion. It’s called the soil conservation program where farmers are paid to put their land back into pasture and grass. They get an annual payment for 20 years over that period of time to keep that land out of production. As a result, we’re decreasing our production of large field crops.