Alex Maiolo, HINT program coordinator of the Future of Music Coalition, explains how to choose a health care plan. Melissa Tussing/MNS
WASHINGTON- So you want to form a band. You’ve got your equipment, found your rehearsal space and are keeping connected with your loyal fan base on MySpace and Twitter.
But what about health insurance?
Before the health care reform bill became law you had a choice to make. You could pay for health care, or you could take the risk.
A significant portion of musicians has decided to take the risk. An April 2010 study from the Future of Music Coalition found that 34 percent of the 1,400 musicians surveyed did not have health insurance, more than twice the national average.
Under the new health care law, all Americans are mandated to have health insurance by 2014.
The New American Foundation and Future of Music Coalition hosted a panel discussion on the subject Tuesday as part of the Future of Music Coalition’s Policy Day 2010.
The panelists are point people musicians or actors can reach out to for more information about their health insurance options. None of them were sure how the new law would affect their work.
“We have been basing our HINT advice on why people should get health insurance and how it will prevent them from suffering a whole laundry list of pain,” said Alex Maiolo, HINT (Health Insurance Navigation Tool) program coordinator for the Future of Music Coalition. “I think now that everyone’s going to have to get [health insurance] I think our role is increasingly going to become oriented to, what does this all mean.”
People who are currently uninsured can buy insurance on the open market and don’t have to worry about begging for coverage or being denied coverage,” said Renata Marinaro, manager of health services education and outreach for The Actors Fund.
Marinaro said the government will subsidize coverage for up to 400 percent of the poverty level. But what artists will pay for health care insurance is still a “sizeable chunk of money.”
“What the government considers affordable insurance will be up to 8 percent of your income,” Marinaro said. “That’s quite a bit of money, even if you’re not making a lot of money.”
Adam Huttler, executive director of Fractured Atlas, said musicians and other self-employed artists might have greater concerns over their health care insurance because they are left out of an employer-based system.
“And musicians are non-traditional employees. Gigs are unpredictable. It’s very episodic. There are occupational hazards, below average incomes,” Huttler said.
Most of the people Huttler advises in New York opt for high-deductible plans. That way musicians, who tend to be younger, save on premiums but are protected if they suddenly need costly medical care.
Maiolo agreed. “It doesn’t make sense to be spending hundreds of hundreds of dollars to go to the doctor and pay $20,” he said.
Other options are turning a small band into a small business and getting health insurance through a small group plan. States differ on rates for small businesses though.
Whether bands will continue to be able to incorporate or if high-deductible plans would meet the health insurance requirement remains to be seen.
Maiolo suggests determining how much you would be able to scrape together – including mortgages and borrowing – to survive through a really bad health year. Then pick a plan that you can survive paying that amount for a few years.
“[If someone had to pay $8,500 for health insurance on a bad year], it would suck,” Huttler said. “But it’s a lot better than $250,000. The difference between really unfortunate and painful and life-destroying.”
And as Marinaro put it: “To be creative you need to be healthy.”