Featuring Ayesha Orange, SAG-AFTRA member and working dancer/choreographer in Hollywood, on the challenges performers currently face getting enough of the “right kind of work” to qualify for employer-subsidized health insurance. And what now? Upcoming changes to the union benefit plan will make it even harder. . .
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What recourse do performers and media professionals have in the face of rising health insurance premiums? Is the entertainment industry bouncing back from the pandemic? Ayesha Orange, professional dancer, choreographer, and single mom, joins host Brenda Gazzar to discuss how increased health insurance expenses may affect her and her young son next year.
Worry-free health care? Not even in LaLa Land!
—– TRANSCRIPT —–
(10-Second music)
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.
Today, we’ll continue our discussion with Hollywood dancer and choreographer, Ayesha Orange, who appeared in all three “Austin Powers” movies. The longtime SAG-AFTRA member and single mom is coming to terms with benefit changes that are leaving her and her young son without health insurance.
(5-second Stinger music)
Q: So (SAG-AFTRA) raised the amount of money you had to make — is it per year?
Orange: Yes. It went from $13,000 to $25,000 something.
Q: Okay and if you don’t make that money then you don’t qualify for their health coverage?
Orange: Correct or it’s a certain amount of days that you have to be on set, which was 100 days. What dance job has been going on anywhere for 2020? This could not have been the most inopportune time for someone to make such a drastic move to, I think it’s 11,000 people. The poor seniors, come on!
Q: So what does this mean for you in terms of if you’re paying $300 and something each month for health insurance? What is, what kind of decisions are you having to make? What is that going to do to you, do you think?
Orange: I don’t know, I’m like, I hate to say it but I, I’m gonna have to see when it comes. You know, we have to let go of a lot. I don’t get child support. So, it’s like, pray? Um, I don’t know. I’m gonna have to find $333 extra dollars a month beyond my mortgage, beyond my car, beyond everything, and please know that child care. I mean school, I don’t pay for school but child care. My mother is helping me right now — thank goodness she’s free — but I don’t know, I think that is where I’m gonna have to … I don’t know where my adjustments will be made yet.
Q: Um, are any of your friends in the same situation?
Orange: Yes, many, most, most. I don’t know a dancer that is not. Choreographers, unfortunately, aren’t covered. They make a little bit more money, a lot more money. SAG doesn’t even cover choreographers for some bizarre reason or assistant choreographers like myself. Dancers get, I want to say, I don’t know the exact amount but at the most they don’t get paid much.
And every single SAG dancer that I know of is being affected right now in 2020, and like I said, now that they are capable of getting hand sanitizers everywhere, everyone wears a mask on set, they have zones, certain people at a certain time on set, they’re figuring it out because this is all new. No one knows what it is, no one knows what the effects are. No one really knows….well we do know how you get it but we don’t know how to protect ourselves around a group setting. So they are learning. We are all still learning.
Q: Right. Did they talk about why they’re doing this?
Orange: They did. I believe there’s so many, there were so many opinions and stories I believe that, and I try to stay away from fear of it, you know, because it feels — what they said was that this, the insurance monies were dwindling to where they weren’t capable of insuring or handling so many people. That was my interpretation of it, that the funds were low. They weren’t allowed to — not allowed but capable of insuring and paying for such a group of people. Therefore, they raised the bar? I don’t really understand their logic but, of course, it comes down to money.
Q: Have you read or heard about Medicare for All, which would provide universal health coverage for all residents regardless of their employment status? What are your thoughts on a system like that?
Orange: I mean I would assume that that would be like mandatory. Isn’t that what Canada does? Isn’t that what should be? But he who must not be named is trying to take our Social Security. Of course, it would be great. I would vote, I would picket, I would totally do what is needed for everyone to be covered. I know some people who haven’t been to the dentist for years because do you know how much a cleaning is? It’s 100 bucks I believe. Some people don’t have it. That extra hundred dollars, you know, twice a year. So yes, it would be wonderful. Unfortunately, it just isn’t.
Thank you Ayesha. Find more Code WACK! episodes on Progressive Voices.com and on the PV app. You can also subscribe to Code WACK! wherever you find your podcasts. This podcast is powered by HEAL California, uplifting the voices of those fighting for healthcare reform around the country. I’m Brenda Gazzar.
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