Diagnosis: artist

Our local artists and musicians struggle to secure basic health care

Cheyenne Butcher saw the rain coming but waited for the perfect shot. Rather than run for cover, she stayed on location, trying to keep her camera dry. After all, her boss let her take off work, so she had to finish then. But when the sickness hit, she missed work for another reason. Without insurance, she couldn’t afford a doctor visit or medicine to get well. Without sick time, she lost money when she couldn’t go to work.

“It would have been alleviated had I been able to go to the doctor. That’s not an option. I wouldn’t be able to pay for that. So you unfortunately get everyone else sick or deal with the pain,” said Butcher, who works at Dwelling Spaces as a Barista and at AHHA as manager of the printmaking department.

Recently, several benefits have been held to help local musicians struggling with soaring medical bills in the wake of major medical events. The packed calendar has brought attention to the plight of the working artist, often struggling to make ends meet with multiple jobs which don’t provide health insurance. In the artistic community, it’s a systemic lack of access.

There are resources for the approximately 29,000 independent artists, writers, and performers working in Oklahoma. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidizes insurance for most Americans, including an eligible 44 percent of the roughly 640,000 uninsured Oklahomans. Additionally, Artists Health Resource Center and Fractured Atlas are two organizations with websites devoted to educating and connecting artists with options and insurance. However, researching options and enrolling is a challenge for someone under the gun to freelance and work multiple jobs.

Timing and system challenges help explain why 78,000 Oklahomans consulted the ACA website and qualified for subsidized health care, but only 33,000 actually enrolled in a plan as of March 1, 2014.

“When I try, I can’t sign up. I’m constantly thinking about what I’m going to teach or my community and what I’m doing for them.

Accommodating it to my schedule and having the stars align has been the most difficult thing,” said Butcher.

Of course, money is also an issue. Before he returned to Tulsa in 2011, eventually becoming Coordinator and Instructor of the AHHA Film Institute and Film Series, Zach Litwack worked freelance through graduate school at Columbia College in Chicago.

“It was just not a priority. Paying rent or bills was more important, so I let health insurance slide. Fortunately, I never really got sick,” said Litwack.

Considered an artist in residence, Litwack doesn’t have access to insurance through his employer, but he has recently been able to obtain coverage through the ACA. While he’s grateful for the discounts, the compulsory sign-up instead of access to health care as a basic human right raises broader questions for him.

“How are art and artists valued? There is design and art everywhere, yet somehow it’s still not seen as a necessity. I chose this life knowing it can be unstable, but it points at broader issues in terms of our society and what we value,” said Litwack.

Litwack’s sentiments resonate in the music studio, too. After freelancing for almost 15 years, Mark Kuykendall finally quit his day jobs to establish a studio for his label, Unknown Tone, in 2011 with his wife, Lindsey. As he segues to fulltime music production, he faces challenges procuring health care now that he’s self-employed.

“I’m leery of the system, being forced to take something from someone else that might not be the best for me,” said Kuykendall.

After losing access to a family plan six years ago, Kuykendall cites playing it safe by working from home as a strategy to avoid illness. Like Butcher, he says the options are lacking. Like Litwack, he says the money just isn’t there. Currently, he’s working with SoonerCare and taking advantage of his access to Indian Health Services. Echoing Litwack’s concerns, he hopes for a paradigm shift away from the approach to health care as an individual responsibility.

“Health care needs to be a broader concern. Everybody kind of views it like it’s a personalized thing. If everybody could know that when your neighbor’s hurting, that hurts you as well,” said Kuykendall.

Butcher, Litwack, and Kuykendall are each at different points in their careers. But whether still in the day-job trenches, established with an iconic local-arts organization, or finally going solo fulltime, they struggle to obtain the peace of mind that health care brings.

“If you’re unhappy doing the job because you don’t have enough time to do your artwork, you quit the job that can afford health care, and you start doing your artwork. I love that I’ve made that choice, but I wish I could have benefits like everybody else,” said Butcher.

For now, she’ll wrap up a project, teach her nine students, and serve up specialty coffee at Dwelling Spaces. As long as no one in the array of people she’ll photograph or teach or serve today has a cold, she’ll be fine, she said.