Featuring Eliska Hahn, a hardworking, highly talented voice artist, model and actor who ended up declaring medical bankruptcy at age 23. Does the desire for dignity, independence and healthcare security mean Americans must give up their dreams of working in creative fields? Host Brenda Gazzar and Eliska Hahn examine how America’s fragmented healthcare system let her down as she started a family while pursuing an ambitious entertainment career across the country.
Any port in America’s healthcare storm?
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Welcome to Code WACK!, your podcast on America’s broken healthcare system and how Medicare for All could help. I’m your host, Brenda Gazzar.
How do performers who work as contractors cope when health problems arise? What lengths do these performers go to in order to pay their medical bills? Eliska Hahn, who has worked in broadcast radio, film and television for more than three decades, reveals her heart-wrenching healthcare struggles in this first of a two-part series.
Welcome to Code WACK!, Eliska.
Q: If you can just introduce yourself and tell us how you got your start as a performer, that would be great.
HAHN: My name is Eliska Hahn and I have been in front of a microphone or a camera since I was 18-months old. I actually won a hometown, baby modeling contest so I guess that’s how it all began.
My career has taken me everywhere from doing radio broadcasting to voice over to voice acting to the stage to feature film documentary, film narration, commercial work, modeling. I guess I have to throw in professional figure skating and performing and coaching and choreography. Just a variety of everything — all things performing.
Q: So it sounds like, like most actors and performers, that you’ve traveled a lot for your work. Is that right?
Hahn: Yes.
Q: Okay, so what states have you worked in and how has moving around affected your healthcare status?
Hahn: Well, I have moved a lot. Interestingly, right before I got into acting and broadcasting, I was married to a military officer, a B-52 bomber pilot, and we lived all over the place for four years. Of course, I had secure health care — very secure health care — when I was married.
And then I was, you know, suddenly divorced and a single mother and had no health care for myself. Fortunately, my son, being the son of an active duty military member, was still covered by CHAMPUS insurance then and that was wonderful. But I myself as an ex-military spouse, had no health care at all. And I had not had the opportunity to finish my education at the time, and back when I began in radio broadcasting there really, there were less regulations about what employers had to provide as far as health care for varying part-time or extended part-time or less than full-time workers, and I did, I moved around considerably because especially, in radio, oftentimes, it’s moving to get the next largest market to make a career advancement.
And I was blessed to have good connections, and I started out in West Virginia, and I went to Oklahoma City, and then to Medford, Oregon, and then to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and then Naples, Florida, and just kind of worked in a lot of different states. It was a challenge. I did not have health care most of that time. I did not have health care but I wasn’t sick so I didn’t worry about it too much.
Simultaneously, towards the end of my commercial radio broadcast career, I was teaching figure skating full time because I was a professional skater and I became a professional coach, and again it was difficult, because working for myself basically, being an I-9 type of contract worker, I had very few situations. I mean I had a few situations in my employment days where I would be working for a (skating) rink. I would say 90% of what I did over 23 years coaching figure skating, I was working for myself. I was considered a contract (employee) so there were no benefits that came with that. I did have some positions where I was a skating director and a program director and considered an employee of the facility and provided some health care coverage at the time, but again, it was before I got very sick.
Q: You didn’t get your health insurance from your job, it sounds like for a good part of your career?
Hahn: Yeah. To be honest with you, I didn’t really worry about it as long as my kids had health care coverage. That was my main focus. I was a single mom, you know, for over two decades. My kids were 10 years apart in age, as long as they were covered, that was always my main focus because I was a professional athlete. I was in great shape.
I, you know, didn’t really have to worry so much and if I did have to go in and have an occasional checkup, or whatever, I was making good money and didn’t mind paying out of pocket.
Q: Wow. So was there a time then that you didn’t have in health insurance?
Hahn: Oh yeah, a lot of time, and I’ll tell you honestly, right after I began working full-time and radio, which I entered at the ripe old age of 21, and by the age of 23, I did have a couple situations with I guess, you know, female reproductive-type situations with ovarian cysts and I had to have I think it was either two or three surgeries. I was not covered by insurance at the time. And I had been covered, like I said, while I was married to an active duty military member and it just was not on my radar how expensive it was if you had to stay in a hospital, and have a surgical procedure.
So I went to have the surgeries and I listened to the doctors and the surgeons and had the procedures and the follow-ups and all of that and then I started getting the bills. And then I realized, oh my gosh, even if I start paying a little bit on each of these every month, this is going to be impossible. And I spoke with a friend about it, and they recommended that at the age of 23 and a half, I was almost 24, that I file medical bankruptcy. So I had to file medical bankruptcy before my 24th birthday.
Thank God, it’s the only time in my life, I’ve ever had to file bankruptcy, but you know, I got divorced at 21 and by 24, I was truly bankrupt due to medical bills.
Now, I can honestly say that after that, I had a great period of health, relatively healthy, or you know was covered periodically when I did have a few issues here and there. But overall, I was in my 20s and 30s and 40s and had good health so my main objective was always just making sure that just the kids were covered.
Q: Wow. So what state were you in when you filed for medical bankruptcy?
Hahn: I was in West Virginia. I was doing radio in the capital city of Charleston, West Virginia.
Q: And how did you feel having to file for medical bankruptcy?
Hahn: I was devastated because, in addition to being a full-time radio personality, I had just filmed my first feature film that I starred in and Charleston is the capital city but everybody knows the media personalities and my biggest fear… because back this would have been 1989ish maybe and I was extremely embarrassed and I didn’t want that information to leak out. I felt like a failure. I was worried because immediately you’re strapped.
The lawyer was wonderful but she was just like, it’s gonna be hard over the next seven years for you…and you know you’re just not going to be able to buy a house or a car, because the bankruptcy is going to basically…but you’re young, you know, you’ll move past it. And I was young, I was far too young to have my life imposed strictly because of medical bills.
I mean I didn’t have like department store cards or, you know, I wasn’t taking vacations or anything. This was 100% due to medical bills.
Q: How much did you owe from your surgeries?
Hahn: It definitely wasn’t more than $20,000, which isn’t a tremendous amount of money.
I mean it was a fair amount in 1989, and certainly to someone who was in her early 20s with a 2-year old. And I’m working full time in radio, which is great and fun but historically, it doesn’t pay well in the smaller markets.
Q: So you were devastated and then how did that impact your life for the next seven years?
Hahn: It was very difficult. I actually, you know very candidly, I married very quickly because I thought that I was going to need that type of security for myself and for my son. It was a poor decision. And I can’t say that I didn’t love him but I probably wouldn’t have married had it not been for that. I hope that doesn’t make me sound overly calculating but looking back on it with my almost 55-year-old eyes looking back at my 25 or 26-year-old self is just like, “oh girl, how could you do that?”
Well, I was put in a terrible situation, a terrible situation financially and I was just looking for a rudder, a port in the storm, and wanted security not just for myself, but for my very young son, and I hoped to grow my family, because of the female issues, the reproductive issues, I was told that I was going to have some difficulty conceiving again. So again, that pushed me into thinking, well, I got to get about this business if I want to grow my family and so many of those things influenced my decision.
Thank you, Eliska.
Find more Code WACK! episodes on ProgressiveVoices.com and on the PV App. You can also subscribe to Code WACK! wherever you find your podcast. This podcast is powered by HEAL California, uplifting the voices of those fighting for health care reform around the country. I’m Brenda Gazzar.
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