Health Care

Barriers to traditional coverage

Most workers in the United States have access to health care through their employer, but many musicians scrape together multiple categories of income from a range of employers, licensors, and gigs. That creates structural barriers that have resulted in musicians lacking health coverage at nearly 3 times the rate of the general population. While the Affordable Care Act represents a meaningful step in the right direction, there’s much more to be done to ensure that every musician can access quality care without risking life-altering medical debt.

Understanding the barriers to care

FMC conducted the first research to assess the disparity in musicians’ health care coverage compared to the general population and to understand the specific reasons why so many musicians lack coverage. Since then, we’ve worked with partners to address those barriers, helping musicians navigate a complex system, and encouraging musicians to take advantage of the resources that exist, while also calling for systemic transformations that could put an end to emergency Gofundme campaigns and benefit shows.

What’s Next

Single-payer approaches to health insurace could represent a massive improvement over the current system. This would benefit musicians, but would also benefit a range of small businesses and workers across the industry, including independent labels, publishers, venues, publicity & PR firms, music journalists and more.