LA Times Culture Monster blog: Arts organizations stumble into the healthcare debate

[Heidi]

August 13, 2009 | 3:00 pm

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Today, a coalition of 21 national arts organizations entered the healthcare reform debate with three really good prescriptions -- and one really bad one. In additional to its helpful ideas, the coalition also wants "a healthcare reform bill that will support arts in healthcare programs, which have shown to be effective methods of prevention and patient care."

Uh, not always.

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Under the umbrella of Americans for the Arts, the Washington, D.C.-based arts lobbying group, the coalition smartly asked Congress to pass a reform bill that acknowledges the unique difficulties artists confront in obtaining healthcare.

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They call on Congress to pass a bill that will:

1) create a public health insurance option for individual artists, especially the uninsured, and create better choices for affordable access to universal health coverage without being denied because of pre-existing conditions.
2) help financially-strapped nonprofit arts organizations reduce the skyrocketing health insurance costs to cover their employees without cuts to existing benefits and staff while the economy recovers. These new cost-savings could also enable nonprofit arts organizations to produce and present more programs to serve their communities.
3) enable smaller nonprofit and unincorporated arts groups to afford to cover part- and full-time employees for the first time.
These proposals ably demonstrate a pressing need within a large sector of the public. (Americans for the Arts has estimated that nearly 6 million Americans are employed in the nonprofit sector.) They also demonstrate a pressing need within a creative class that is regularly punished for nonconformity. And they show the fiscal multiplier effect -- what we lose elsewhere because of sky-high medical expenses -- in our current system, which costs twice as much as the average for industrialized nations while ranking Americans at No. 42 in life expectancy.

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[murielm99]

1. My daughter is a classically trained musician.

She plays in one orchestra north of us, and another as a "per service" musician. She has to have another music-related job where she works enough hours to qualify to BUY her own insurance.

It is tough enough to make it as a musician. She is willing to face that hardship. And it is a hardship. She works her butt off. She deserves health care, too.

[Heidi]

2. Totally agree.

Good morning, murielm! :hi:

[murielm99]

3. Morning, Heidi!

[corpseratemedia]

4. I agree with what's been posted here, in an ideal world, those in govt. could see the value

of art in healthcare (hospice or art therapy etc.) and also a public option for artists.

Artists generally deal with clients and orgs that want something for nothing and the landscape looks a lot like bank ceos vs. bank tellers in terms of earnings. I agree that the creative class is the scapegoat when it comes to govt. funding.

It's a shame. The reporting of this will make the crazies even crazier.

[Heidi]

5. Those in government will not see the value of art in LIFE itself

until those in general see it, in my opinion.

Sorry to be the one reporting this, but I do think it's worth discussing. But don't worry. The arts' coalition's proposals won't go anywhere.