A Way-Hip Forum on Artists Health Insurance

On Monday July 18, approximately 65 people assembled at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle to explore affordable, sustainable, and quality solutions for access to health coverage for artists. Participants traveled from as far as Maine and North Carolina to join Washington State leaders representing a unique cross-sector group of industries including health care, governmental health policy, medical insurance, and labor, as well as arts funding and artist services. The forum was co-hosted by Artist Trust and Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC) as an important step in the Washington Artists Health Insurance Project, also known as WAHIP.

The day was chock-full of presentations on the state of our State’s health insurance regulations, WAHIP’s recent research* about the artist population and experiences with and needs for health insurance, a panel discussion on innovative insurance models from around the country, and, finally, break-out sessions where participants brainstormed solutions to the challenges at hand. Among the messages most often voiced were:

• Artists in Washington would benefit from more targeted information on health care and insurance.
  
  
• Opportunities for artists to leverage the State’s existing Basic Health program need to be further explored.
  
  
• Because there is a high level of self-employment among artists, working with solutions for this population can help identify solutions for others not covered by employer health plans.
  
  
• Policy and advocacy efforts by and for artists need to be allied with other groups dealing with similar health coverage needs.
  
  
• Health care, not just insurance, needs to be emphasized.

Artist Trust and LINC will continue to strategize on how to make progress on this important issue that impacts artists on a daily basis.

Special thanks to the funders of the WAHIP project: the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Nathan Cummings Foundation; and to the forum sponsors: the Washington State Arts Commission, 4Culture, the Seattle Mayor’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs and the Washington Health Foundation. Thanks also go to the dozen plus artists who created one-of-a-kind nametags for all participants, to performers Christa Bell, Stuart Dempster, Lelavision and 33 Fainting Spells for providing wonderfully refreshing “art minutes” throughout the day, to the witty and charming Nancy Guppy who performed master of ceremony duties masterfully. Special thanks go to the presenters and members of the WAHIP Advisory Group for helping shape the day’s activities, and to Sue Kunimatsu for her tremendous coordination of the forum.

Finally, big thanks to Claudia Bach, who serves as lead consultant for WAHIP. Claudia has taken this job on with great commitment and is running with an impossible task and doing a terrific job. If there’s a way to secure affordable health insurance for Washington’s artists, Claudia is going to find it.

*Thanks to the 1,470 artists who participated in the WAHIP survey. To see a summary of the results of the survey, please check back here at the Artist Trust website in late August. In the meantime, here are a few key findings of the WAHIP survey:

• There are more than 22,000 vocational artists in Washington State.
  
  
• 46% are self-employed compared to 10.5% of the general workforce.
  
  
• Artists are highly educated—83% have a BA or higher degree.
  
  
• The median income for artists in the state is about $50,000.
  
  
• While 15% of artists have no insurance, 85% have some level of insurance.
  
  
• At least 18% of insured artists are considered to be under-insured and another 12% considered at-risk for losing their coverage.
  
  
• Nearly a third of artists skipped or delayed medical care in the last 12 months.
  
  
• Almost 20% responded that in the last 3 years, they had taken a job outside of their practice to obtain health insurance.