“I’m Ryan Yoder, Yoder Farm, down in Danby Vermont. The main thing I’d like to say about healthcare and the focus that I would like to see throughout our society, our culture, and definitely within our state government, businesses, communities, is a reorientation towards health as the organizing principle of what we currently call healthcare...It’s expensive to be as unhealthy as we are as a society. The two biggest crises that we as a world are facing are an ecological crisis and a health crisis. The solution to both of those, or at least the most sane and rational way to address them is through creating the best food ever; regenerative agriculture is the current term for that. And what that does is rebuild soil, rebuild biodiversity, rebuild biomes, it creates food that is not toxic to people, which has the optimal amount of nutrition possible, so that people can better address their ability to stay healthy in the first place.”

Listen to Ryan’s story HERE.

“….we should be allowing people to move into farming without all of these roadblocks, and I think that healthcare is the biggest one I can name. Healthcare and farm access, but they’re right there beside each other; they’re equally difficult.”

Listen to Ashlyn’s story HERE.

“It’s frustrating when I hear people who are criticizing universal healthcare, because they think that it doesn’t give them a choice in their healthcare. But, I’ve made so many, I’ve had my choices limited so much in my life about where I work, which is 40 hours in your week, that I’ve had to leave jobs, not take jobs because they didn’t offer health insurance, and what kind of choice is that?”

Listen to Valerie’s story HERE.

“We currently have health care through Vermont Health Connect, and because we’re low-income dairy farmers, we qualify for Vermont Medicaid. If we had universal healthcare, it would impact our farmer business because we wouldn’t have to make business decisions based on whether added income would make us lose our Vermont Medicaid or not, and we could just know that we had health care provided. Because I’ve qualified for Vermont Medicaid I was able to have two rotator cuff surgeries, one on each shoulder, and I am a better working part of the Vermont community. If I hadn’t had Vermont Medicaid, I wouldn’t have been able to afford that kind of surgery that keeps me farming like I do...I really like the idea of Medicaid for all... I think it would be a huge savings for everyone if there wasn’t all that bureaucracy that holds people back.”

Listen to Dan’s story HERE.

"If we had healthcare for all, Medicaid, where we could continue to work and seek all the different therapies that are necessary to strengthen our bodies, repair, heal our bodies, have the necessary surgery, there are ways that we can make it [farming] work. But if it’s financially prohibitive, it means that people have to choose their bodies over their own livelihoods."

Listen to Hilary’s story HERE.

“I’ve been farming for over a decade and things are coming up health-wise…I can’t afford both a decent place to live and good healthcare. I’m working my dream job and get to be outside every day growing with an amazing team of farmers, but I’d love that to be sustainable. For me that means I need access to reproductive services, trauma informed health care practitioners, physical therapy and mental health services…. what happens when we [food service workers] get sick? Don’t we deserve coverage too? I think everyone should get health coverage. It’s what we need for our communities to stay well.”

Listen to Aly’s story HERE.

“My experience is regarding building a farm over 40 years. My margins were always very small. Health insurance was simply not affordable. I guess I can say I was fortunate to be of the age where I can have Medicaid. I think we would have been ruined in recent years because I had a stroke. Medicare carried most of the expenses…I was just lucky once again. I think whatever type of farmer, they’re squeezed all the time by the American cheap food policy and system, and we’re all harmed by low quality food. I’ve often said the best way to carry health insurance is to eat really outstanding food. People are subject to terrible degenerative diseases brought on by bad food compounding its effects over many generations. Health insurance is becoming more and more expensive because more and more of us need a lot of health care. Everyone needs healthcare. I’m a strong supporter of the need for everyone to have medical access without undue expense.”

Listen to Doug’s story HERE.