In light of President Obama’s speech last night, and all the recent insane chatter on the healthcare issue, I have been reflecting on my own experience with our country’s “health care system.” Although I have lived a relatively healthy life (I did break my leg when I was 5) heath insurance, or a lack thereof has been a major issue for me throughout my adult life as it has for almost all my musician and artist friends. These are mostly people who were brought up by parents who provided them employee based health care from infancy through college, and were encouraged to pursue a life “following their dream” often bestowing on them the gift of a solid artistic based education to help lead them down that road. None of us were warned, however, that we would be totally screwed when it came to health care coverage after college, just that the rest of our financial life would probably be tough. Now let’s leave out how depressing the prospect of trying to make a living in the arts in the USA even with the best of training, still the biggest obstacle for maintaining a long term approach to this life is how to provide one’s self, let alone a family down the road with the safety net of adequate health coverage. So much has been said about all this recently, and I don’t feel I even want to add much to the debate as I think the “debate” is most of the problem at this point. I will just share my experience:

When I graduated from the New School, I was 24, and suddenly for the first time without any sort of coverage. At the time I was young and had so many other concerns (getting gigs, paying my brand new cell phone bill (that phone was a tank by today’s standards), and dealing with an intolerable roommate. As time went on however, the gravity of this situation kept growing on me as I always knew in the back of my mind I was one bad fall, sickness, or car accident away from financial disaster. In those days I was constantly in the car driving back from gigs 4 hours away in the middle of the night half asleep because we couldn’t afford to get a hotel room for the night and still make money from the gig. With that being the situation, how could I possibly come up with $500 a month for basic coverage I hardly ever would even use?

Now I have a family and walking that tightrope is a risk I can’t take anymore and I am fortunate enough to have healthcare through my “day job” (that thing that provides me with so much joy and fulfillment and keeps me from my music, family, and most other things I love while providing me with a modest compensation for my efforts.) I do keep hearing that the basic cost to the company for employee based health coverage for a family of 4 like mine is around $12,000 a year, therefore it can be seen that my actual salary is my base plus this amount as this is what I get out of my 8-5 drudgery. The fact is this reliance on my day job is most solely based on the need for health coverage, despite the fact that any salary is important. With that being the case how can I create anything meaningful to my fullest potential? Here is the conundrum: work a day job to get adequate healthcare and sacrifice almost all musical freedom and flexibility (while giving a little piece of my soul away every day) or fly by the seat of my pants and hope nothing even minor happens to me, my wife, or my 2 kids…EVER.

For those of you not in the arts, and who have had the privilege of never having to live without the risk of no coverage, please keep this in mind: Everyone in this country trying to add to the cultural landscape by creating art or music is providing a valuable resource to what makes this country great and influential. This issue has a major impact on why all the music we hear through traditional means sucks so much because anyone with any kind of talent is wasting most of their lives away at some day gig which sucks all of their energy. And the reason they have this day gig is not just to provide the measly $10 an hour they are usually making, but also to give them the thing that most of you still take for granted.

Basically, if you have coverage, step back for a minute and think about what a privilege It is to not have that as a constant worry in your life. These anti-healthcare reform people are so insane most of the time. Rep Joe Wilson last night, from the most enlightened state of South Carolina, yelling at the President in the middle of an important speech that he is “lying” about how we are not proposing to give illegal immigrants coverage. What is he even talking about? What does he think we are doing now? Immigrants are the people flooding our emergency rooms everyday and not paying the bill so all the other health care costs go up.

Half of my family is from France and have never had to even think about any of this for their entire lives. My Uncle had a stroke a decade ago and recently passed away and although it was an almost impossible situation for his wife and immediate family, at least they aren’t bankrupt. Here in the great old USA, even with the foreclosure crisis, health related costs are still the highest cause of bankruptcy.

Starving artist are important to the culture and spirit of this country and we do not need this extra pressure!