Thoughtful advocacy yields positive results in artist health coverage
Kelly George
But big overhead is just one reason why artists are a difficult population to insure. An artist's income is often sporadic and comes from multiple sources, making it difficult to determine whether or not individuals should qualify for subsidized healthcare. Bitetti actually has four days jobs, including working as an adjunct faculty at Emmanuel College and as a graduate mentor at the Art Institute of Boston.
Andrea Lyman, a Boston-area actress and chair of the AFTRA/SAG conservatory that helped co-host the Artist Town Meeting at Emmanuel College, said that although she's not unemployed, there have been plenty of times she found herself uninsured. "I'm in three different unions and I work within all three," Lyman said. "At times I've been covered by each of them separately, but the bulk of the time I'm not insured by any of them." While AFTRA, SAG and Actor's Equity each offer their members a group health insurance plan, only members who do a minimum amount of work within that union qualify for coverage. If you happen to do a little work in all three unions, as Lyman explained she does, it can be difficult to qualify for any of the three union's plans. Right now, Lyman said she's insured with Commonwealth Care, one of the state's subsidized healthcare plans.
Bitetti said research consistently shows that artists are twice as likely to be uninsured as compared to the general population. The most recent research to back that up came out of Minnesota where a report released in March of this year found that 14% of artists in that state were uninsured and 28% of artists were paying for individual plans. The study released by Minnesota Citizens for the Arts was extremely helpful in making the case to the Massachusetts state house that artists were an important part of the picture of uninsured residents here too.
Getting involved in public policy may seem complicated, but Bitetti swears it's not. "It's like if you're a lawyer trying to win your case or if you're a little kid trying to stay up past your bedtime, it's the same thing, you're lobbying your case. It's persuasion. It's the same principle as figuring out how you're going to get your work out there to a curator or get a call back for an audition."
Andrea Lyman, a Boston-area actress and chair of the AFTRA/SAG conservatory that helped co-host the Artist Town Meeting at Emmanuel College, said that although she's not unemployed, there have been plenty of times she found herself uninsured. "I'm in three different unions and I work within all three," Lyman said. "At times I've been covered by each of them separately, but the bulk of the time I'm not insured by any of them." While AFTRA, SAG and Actor's Equity each offer their members a group health insurance plan, only members who do a minimum amount of work within that union qualify for coverage. If you happen to do a little work in all three unions, as Lyman explained she does, it can be difficult to qualify for any of the three union's plans. Right now, Lyman said she's insured with Commonwealth Care, one of the state's subsidized healthcare plans.
Bitetti said research consistently shows that artists are twice as likely to be uninsured as compared to the general population. The most recent research to back that up came out of Minnesota where a report released in March of this year found that 14% of artists in that state were uninsured and 28% of artists were paying for individual plans. The study released by Minnesota Citizens for the Arts was extremely helpful in making the case to the Massachusetts state house that artists were an important part of the picture of uninsured residents here too.
Getting involved in public policy may seem complicated, but Bitetti swears it's not. "It's like if you're a lawyer trying to win your case or if you're a little kid trying to stay up past your bedtime, it's the same thing, you're lobbying your case. It's persuasion. It's the same principle as figuring out how you're going to get your work out there to a curator or get a call back for an audition."