Hollywood writers, actors struggle to get health insurance after strikes

In April, actress Miki Yamashita said she received a health diagnosis requiring surgery to remove non-cancerous tumors. It was then that the artist, who appeared on Cobra Kai and gave his voice to a character on The Lion Guardbegan racing to qualify for her union's health insurance plan by June 30. If she earned enough on eligible projects or worked enough days by then, she could be covered by the plan at the end of the year, when she says she needs to have a medical procedure.

But meeting the requirements of the plan was going to be more difficult than usual. For nearly four months of his qualifying period, his union, SAG-AFTRA, was on strike against film and television companies, and Yamashita was barred by union rules from working on many projects. In the months since, production has not fully rebounded in the Los Angeles area as the entertainment sector continues to experience contraction. As of mid-June, Yamashita — who says he has benefited from the union health plan on and off throughout his career and has sometimes gotten different coverage through outside jobs — was still about $12,000 behind. the required income threshold. (As a performer who focuses on lead acting work, she says it is less realistic for her to meet the alternative requirement of a particular number of days worked. Yamashita, who is an elected delegate of the union, spoke in his own name and not in his own name on SAG-AFTRA.) “Barring a miracle, I doubt I will actually reach the threshold from here. [June] “30 years,” she said. “I’m going to keep pushing until that deadline,” at which point she’ll evaluate other health insurance options.

More than six months after Hollywood's historic double strike officially ended, other writers and actors find themselves in a similar situation. SAG-AFTRA performers generally must earn at least $27,000 in covered income or work at least 104 days in 12 months to qualify for health insurance coverage starting in 2024. (In 2023, before the SAG-AFTRA strike, only about 25,000 union members out of about 160,000 met those requirements.) Members of the Writers Guild of America, meanwhile, must earn $43,862 in covered income over four quarters to qualify for the Writers Guild-Industry Health Fund; starting July 1, they must earn $45,397.

Certainly, health plans offer some leniency to participants after the months of strike action. The Writers Guild-Industry Health Fund and the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan, which operate separately from their affiliated unions and are managed by directors from both union and management, offer one-quarter health coverage extensions if union members meet. certain requirements.

The extensions bought time, but they weren’t a panacea for some members, as the Writers Guild of America West acknowledged in a statement that blamed Hollywood management. “Decisions made by studios in recent years have disrupted employment in the industry, reduced the number of projects developed and produced, and forced two strikes. The Guild cares deeply about the writers who are losing coverage and will continue to fight for quality health care for writers and work with organizations like the Entertainment Community Fund to ensure access when Guild coverage expires,” the Guild said.

In the meantime, creatives of all levels are scrambling to meet the demands. Tracker And Waffles + Mochi Writer David Radcliff is $5,000 away from requalifying for the Writers Guild-Industry Health Fund. After receiving an extension of coverage, he must make up his income gap by September 30. Radcliff, who has cerebral palsy, says: “For someone who uses a wheelchair and crutches and has a lifelong condition, having insurance is especially strong. insurance like that offered by the Writers Guild, there is a sense of security and stability in that. He said he tries not to be “too optimistic or too pessimistic” when thinking about the possibility of requalifying this fall.

William Sadler, a veteran performer who has played roles in Hawaii five-0, The Shawshank Redemption And Die Hard 2, has been a member of SAG-AFTRA since 1977 and doesn't recall having difficulty qualifying for union health insurance in years past. A year ago, he says, his wife was diagnosed with lung cancer, and he has since turned down his job because of a desire to spend time with her in their southeast New York home. Meanwhile, there were fewer choices during its qualifying period due to strikes.

Sadler says he’s trying to reach his income threshold by Sept. 30 without spending long periods away from his wife, who is also on the plan. “It’s a terrible situation at the best of times, but it’s made worse by the fact that I really feel like I’m under pressure to find a job that meets that requirement,” he says. “This is not the time to be without health insurance.” For now, Sadler says he’s considering taking a quick job in Los Angeles that would normally be hired by a local and he would pay for his own travel and stay there.

Chelsea Schwartz, SAG-AFTRA member (Rebel Moon (parts one and two) has been a member of the union for almost a decade and has been on its health insurance plan for most of that time, doing replacement and background work. She lost her SAG-AFTRA insurance in early 2024, which she says happened because of less work during the actors' and writers' strikes. Now she's trying to work 65 more days between now and September 30. This has been difficult in the context of Hollywood's continued contraction: “It's the slowest I've ever seen in my industry. I probably submit at least a hundred posts a week, [and] I think I spend an average of four days a month on set.

A veteran SAG-AFTRA actress who declined to be named but is playing the lead in a summer movie is also at risk of losing her insurance and must meet her earnings threshold by June 30. “When you’re an actress of a certain profile, it’s not a good feeling to have to say to your agents, ‘Hey, can you get me a guest role in a movie that’s going to have someone my age in it because otherwise I’m going to lose my health insurance?’ It shouldn’t be like that,” she said.

The situation has not gone unnoticed by casting directors, who sometimes try to help actors reach their qualification thresholds. Casting director Tineka Becker (The mysterious Benedict Society, Heist) says the casting community has a few private Facebook groups where “over the past four years, [there has been] a very obvious and concerted effort to share information about actors at risk of losing their health insurance and to actually try to solve the problem by trying to find roles for them.

Actors and writers also reveal their qualifying difficulties on social media. Yamashita posted a video on May 10 in which she asked for help finding work; this video was shared and liked by thousands of people on the X platform alone. Since then, she has been “working pretty regularly,” she says. “I was incredibly honored and blessed by this outpouring of goodwill. »

The writer Carlos Cisco (Star Trek: Discovery, East Los High) is another worker who disclosed his health insurance situation on X — in his case, he's set to lose his coverage after June 30. He says his “ship has sailed” now to re-qualify for the health insurance plan before it expires. , and he applied for Medi-Cal.

Overall, it wasn’t a difficult decision for Cisco to go public. He was inspired by seeing another writer do the same thing. “If there’s one thing we all learned from the strike, more than anything, it’s [that] we need to talk openly about our problems with each other,” he says. “Most often we share the same problems and we are not as isolated as we think. »