Noem Introduces CRP Payment Fix

Pat Powers

Noem Introduces CRP Payment Fix

Washington, D.C. – Rep. Kristi Noem today introduced the Fair CRP Payment Act to better ensure CRP rates accurately reflect the current cost of renting farmland.

“Growing up, my dad always talked about how important it was to have access to land, because, as he would say, ‘God isn’t making more of it,’” saidNoem. “The ag economy can change significantly from year-to-year, and if CRP rates aren’t updated quickly enough, they can distort local rental markets and make it difficult for farmers – particularly beginning farmers – to access productive farmland. I’m hopeful this legislation will ensure producers don’t have to compete with unfair CRP rates.”

CRP payments are based on county rental rate averages. Currently, the National Agricultural Statistic Service (NASS) conducts rental rate surveys every other year, resulting in slow reactions to market changes. Under Noem’s Fair CRP Payment Act, rental rate surveys would be conducted annually to more accurately reflect rate changes.

Last week, Noem joined members of the House Agriculture Committee for a Farm Bill listening session to hear from producers about changes needed in ag policy. In addition to today’s legislation, Noem has introduced the DRY Act and the Wetland Determinations Efficiency and Transparency Act, which are all being considered as the Farm Bill moves forward.

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16 thoughts on “Noem Introduces CRP Payment Fix”

  2. Yep, let’s help to facilitate socialism for the hard working farmers, but Medicaid for the hard working poor, uh, not so much, huh?……

    1. EC, your comparison is faulty. CRP is a win-win for producers and the public, as farmers and ranchers get paid rent from the feds to keep wetlands and pastures and wildlife habitat vital. That’s a good deal. Medicaid, on the other hand, is an awful federal program that underpays doctors. (My dad, a physician, performed free medical care every day and never filled out the Medicaid forms because they were so time-consuming. “I already donated my time and skill once,” he’d say.) Medicaid also has never improved health outcomes for the poor. Everyone loses. For Medicaid to work, it would have been much better and easier to cut everyone a check to take to private insurers.

      1. Well, first of all wouldn’t this “…..it would have been much better and easier to cut everyone a check to take to private insurers….” be socialism too?

        Secondly, I laude your father’s commitment, but Medicaid came into being because there were not enough good doctors like your father in the first place.

        I also find many of your overall comments about Medicaid to be general at best. In the states that have fully embraced ObamaCare, health care for the working poor has improved remarkably, and because of this Medicaid expansion the working poor do not wait for an ER visit to address their medical needs any more. Because Medicaid expansion gives the working poor a preventative angle that they can afford or afford to experience.

        And to say that “Medicaid also has never improved health outcomes for the poor,” is to ignore, as one example, the 65+% of nursing home residents in this state, who are on Medicaid and living a better and longer life because of it….

        Plus, your analogy equating farmers with doctors is wrong. My initial comment established the premise of equating “hard working farmers” with the “hard working poor.” The doctors you mention in reference to the working poor would instead be analogous to grain elevator operators in relation to wheat farmers…. Accept that grain operators take their payment and under your father’s scenario, he worked for free, even though Medicaid would have paid, which is better I surmise, even if “underpaid,” than probono work……

        1. Of course cutting a check for everyone is socialism! But we’ll never, ever go back to out-of-pocket payment for medical care — we all want someone else to cover the bill. Evidence: In 1966, when Medicare and Medicaid kicked in — and the year my dad started his medical career — 60 percent of people paid their doctor and hospital bills in cash. Today that figure is 11 percent. Cutting a check to everyone to choose the insurance they want is clean and simple compared to the monstrosity of Obamacare.

          All doctors I’ve known have treated everyone regardless of ability to pay. It’s the commitment they made. My dad and his colleagues took that seriously. He was exceptional in one regard — he was the only white doctor to do house calls in black neighborhoods in Flint, Mich. And this was a time of riots and political assassinations in 1967 and 1968. He could be fearless.

          As for the Medicaid’s efficacy, I’ve yet to see a single study showing great results. And Medicaid recipients head for emergency rooms for routine care at the same rate as ever — that’s documented. As for nursing homes, the 65 percent figure is correct, because most people outlive their money. It still would be vastly cheaper and more effective to let the state’s manage 100 percent of the public money and cut checks to buy long-term care policies.

          As for the last graf, time matters more than money, and while my dad filled out stacks of insurance form every night after supper — he had to get paid somehow — he refused to do Medicaid because they were time consuming and often pointless. Example: The government wanted proof of a followup visit, but Medicaid patients have always taken a “one and done” approach to treatment. So dad knew he’d never see them again.

          As for the “hard-working poor,” I’m not sure who you mean, and in any case it’s condescending. I’ve spent much of my life broke — and was twice down to my last $50 — but I was never poor. I worked hard, saved, and 40 years later I became an overnight success. That’s true for many others, I suspect. Does that mean they need to be dependent on an insipid government program like Medicaid? Perhaps. Uncle Sugar’s piggy bank will come up empty at some point, and maybe we’ll try a new approach.

        2. Ummm, let’s look at the stats:
          1. The state’s which have expanded Medicaid to able bodied childless adults have been hit the worst with the opiod epidemic. New Hampshire expanded Medicaid in 2014 and that was the year their overdose deaths increased exponentially.
          2. 4 out of 5 Heroin addicts got their start with prescription drugs
          3. Pregnant women on Medicaid are 40% more likely to be using narcotics than pregnant women on private insurance. Who prescribes narcotics for pregnant women?

          Medicaid expansion seems to be causing more problems than it solves. It’s certainly killing more people than it did before expansion.

          But hey, if you think getting poor people hooked on narcotics and killing them with heroin and fentanyl is a good idea, keep advocating for it.

  3. Oh yeah, about the ER use by Medicaid patients. According to CMS, in any given year Medicaid patients use hospital ERs at 2-3X the rate of the privately insured or uninsured do.

        1. And, are these Medicaid recipients a part of the working poor who have just been added by Obamacare?

          1. Emoluments Clause, Medicaid makes going to the doctor and getting a prescription for opiods free.
            This is cheaper than going to the store and paying for Advil and Beer.

            So, you get off work and your back hurts. If you have copays and deductibles to think about, you go to the nearest convenience store and purchase your medication, but if you are on Medicaid you can go to the ED and get some really good drugs for free.

  4. Back to Ag eh? Earl Butz; Nixons Sec of Ag and the first Doctorate of Ag at Perdue said some super off the cuff stupid stuff but also some genius. One of his quotes was when environmentalists warned against pesticides and fertilizers, he retorted, “Before we go back to organic agriculture, somebody is going to have to decide what 50 million people we are going to let starve.”
    Another was “With people starving all over the world why would the country with the largest contiguous bread basket stretching from the Appalachians to the Rocky Mountains pay farmers to not produce food”.
    Under his Sec of Ag reign food prices went up and we started trade with China and the USSR in great measures never seen before.
    Food prices need to rise once again. Paying farmers to not grow food will slowly do that.

  6. Charlie Hoffman… Thanks for getting things back to ag. The comparison of CRP to Medicaid hit me wrong.

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