Last year, about one-third of all premium subsidies went to just 4% of farmers, most of them large farms. One farm, for example, received $1.3 million in premium subsidies, and the insurer was paid $499,000 in overhead expenses for the policy, which covered canola, corn, dry beans, potatoes, soybeans, sugar beets and wheat across eight counties in two states, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
If subsidies to farms such as these were capped at $40,000, the government could save $1 billion a year, the GAO found.
