What’s the Picture for Artists Three Years after Health Reform?

The Massachusetts Artists Foundation recently released a report assessing the impact of state health reform on professional artists.

The report, Stand Up and Be Counted: A Survey of Massachusetts Artists on Their Work Lives, Socioeconomic Status, Access to Healthcare, and Medical and Non-Medical Debt (pdf) compiles extensive survey data from 3,145 full- and part-time Massachusetts artists. It was inspired by and modeled largely after Minnesota’s 2007 Artists Count survey, which convinced the Commonwealth Connector to calculate income based on Adjusted Gross Income instead of Gross Income by highlighting the significant costs artists incur. The Massachusetts study shows how high costs of work and high rates of self-employment have left many artists behind even as state-wide health care access has improved.

Here are some key findings:

• Nearly half of the artists surveyed have combination incomes (both self-employed and as employees), which can be an obstacle to receiving subsidized health care.
• The uninsurance rate for Massachusetts artists surveyed is twice that of all Massachusetts residents. This is due mostly to lack of affordability for self-employed artists, earning just too much to qualify for subsidized health care, or having no insurance available through employers.
• Of those artists who do have health insurance, about a quarter fear losing it in the near future because of rising costs or losing government subsidy eligibility.
• Artists fall behind the general population with access to primary care, with only 82.5% reporting that they see a primary care doctor or provider regularly. Meanwhile, the state average is 92.1% of all residents and 87.3% of low-income residents.
• A disproportionately large percentage of artists face debt for medical or dental bills, nearly 24% compared to the 17.4% national average.

These statistics stress the importance of continued policy work to ensure fair implementation of health care reform in Massachusetts. Further, in conjunction with other similar studies such as Artists Count, the report draws attention to the healthcare obstacles artists face around the country today. As national health care reform materializes, it will remain extremely important to keep these challenges in mind.
-Christa Frintner