Musicians and health care coverage
Reuters
Mar 5, 2004
Health Insurance Crisis Lingers for Biz
By Chris Morris
Friends held a benefit for Tony Thompson at the Hard Rock Cafe in December.
Thompson, one of the best-known drummers of the ‘70s and ‘80s, had died Nov.
12 after being diagnosed with renal cell cancer. Doctors had removed one of
his kidneys, but by then the cancer had spread to his lungs and liver.
Thompson was uninsured.
“He couldn’t afford it,” says his widow, Patrice Thompson. “When I met him,
he had no money.”
Patrice now faces hospital and medical bills that she calls “astronomical.” In 2002, the nonprofit Washington, D.C.-based Future of Music Coalition (FMC) conducted an online survey and found that 44% of its 2,400 musician respondents did not have any health insurance.
Widow Patrice Thompson:
“I don’t understand how it has gone on this long without somebody doing something about it, or at least pitching a bitch about it.”
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=musicNews&storyID=4509891
Comment: It might be expected that a fragmented, patchwork system of health
insurance coverage that depends on variables such as employment, job stability, financial resources and other similar factors would not serve musicians well. This flawed system has failed to reduce the problems of the uninsured. And the rest of us are paying too much for coverage that is progressively deteriorating.
We can easily fix our system of funding health care so that everyone would
have permanent, comprehensive coverage. But if we limit our efforts to patching our existing fragmented system, the problems of the musicians and the rest of the uninsured will never be resolved.