Peripherals
I'm in the midst of my third fiscal year as manager of my present company. I'm also on my third health plan. Each year, the cost of the health plan has gone up by over twenty percent, so I downshift into a less expensive and crappier plan with more out-of-pocket expense.
I have about two downshifts left before I run out of plans. Unless something changes drastically, I will be out of a plan in FY2012. Our health insurance rep married a Canadian. She gets his benefits from Canada. She says she has no idea how small businesses will be able to afford insurance at all anymore.
I run an Equity company. In FY2006, the weekly health benefit (our expense) cost $125/week. This year (FY2009) it costs $142. Multiply that by 80 or 90 contract weeks, and you rack up enough to get rid of an entire contract for an actor.
In total, my company pays between $14,000-16,000 per year in health insurance costs. Mine is not a large company. That's the total cost of a small play with a two-week run for us.
Think about that. The cost of our health care per year is the cost of a play. If they don't work enough weeks this year, many of our AEA employees will be unable to take much - if any - advantage of all that money. I think twice before using my insurance because the out-of-pocket expenses are too high.
When I see the line in the sand between artists and administrators over living wages, buildings, infrastructure, etc. grow deep and wide, I do think it is important to consider the peripherals. Like theatre, health care also suffers from cost disease.
Knowledge of Baumol does not absolve anyone of responsibility to the greater form of theatre and questions and problems it poses for posterity. Ignorance of Baumol, however, is certain to foil any plans for change as certainly as ignorance of geometry or knowledge of basic wiring.
Consider this: how would your landscape and future as a theatre manager look with a national health plan? How would your work as an artist be affected? How would your decision to have, or not have a family be affected?
The NEA budget does very little for most people, artists and otherwise. Let's make the government do something worth a damn to us. I'll forgo the imaginary grants from the NEA in favor of the immediate $15,000 I'll get back in my budget from a national health plan.
I have about two downshifts left before I run out of plans. Unless something changes drastically, I will be out of a plan in FY2012. Our health insurance rep married a Canadian. She gets his benefits from Canada. She says she has no idea how small businesses will be able to afford insurance at all anymore.
I run an Equity company. In FY2006, the weekly health benefit (our expense) cost $125/week. This year (FY2009) it costs $142. Multiply that by 80 or 90 contract weeks, and you rack up enough to get rid of an entire contract for an actor.
In total, my company pays between $14,000-16,000 per year in health insurance costs. Mine is not a large company. That's the total cost of a small play with a two-week run for us.
Think about that. The cost of our health care per year is the cost of a play. If they don't work enough weeks this year, many of our AEA employees will be unable to take much - if any - advantage of all that money. I think twice before using my insurance because the out-of-pocket expenses are too high.
When I see the line in the sand between artists and administrators over living wages, buildings, infrastructure, etc. grow deep and wide, I do think it is important to consider the peripherals. Like theatre, health care also suffers from cost disease.
Knowledge of Baumol does not absolve anyone of responsibility to the greater form of theatre and questions and problems it poses for posterity. Ignorance of Baumol, however, is certain to foil any plans for change as certainly as ignorance of geometry or knowledge of basic wiring.
Consider this: how would your landscape and future as a theatre manager look with a national health plan? How would your work as an artist be affected? How would your decision to have, or not have a family be affected?
The NEA budget does very little for most people, artists and otherwise. Let's make the government do something worth a damn to us. I'll forgo the imaginary grants from the NEA in favor of the immediate $15,000 I'll get back in my budget from a national health plan.
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