With aย Grammy winย for best new artist, Chappell Roan is at a career high. A few years ago, she was one of the millions of Americans without a job orย health insurance.
โI told myself that if I ever won a Grammy and got to stand up here in front of the most powerful people in music, I would demand that labels, and the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists, would offer a livable wage and health care, especially to developing artists,โ she said at theย Grammy awards showย in Los Angeles on Feb. 2.
โWhen I got dropped, I had zero job experience under my belt. And like most people, I had a difficult time finding a job in the pandemic and could not afford health insurance,โ she said in her acceptance speech.
โIf my label would have prioritized artistsโ health, I couldโve been provided care by a company I was giving everything to. So, record labels need to treat their artists as valuable employees with a livable wage and health insurance and protection.โ
Roan, whose given name is Kayleigh Rose Amstutz,ย was released from her record label in 2020. Thatโs the same year a huge spike inย unemploymentย resulted in an estimated 1.6 million to 3.3 million people losing coverage through their employers, according to the Health and Human Services Department.
At the time, coverage expansions put in place by the Affordable Care Act acted as a safety net for those experiencing coverage disruptions.
That government-backed aid significantly lowered the costs of coverage for people buying health insurance plans onย the ACA marketplace. Those customers include anyone who doesnโt have access to a workplace plan, such as self-employed individuals like musicians, as well as students and the unemployed, among others.
‘Volatile’ income can make health coverage tricky
Gains in Medicaid and marketplace coverage have contributed toย significant declinesย in the uninsured rate, according to KFF, a nonprofit formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation.ย
โWith the Affordable Care Act, thereโs a health care safety net for artists who previously had none,โ said Larry Levitt,ย KFFโsย executive vice president for health policy. The ACA also guarantees insurance for pre-existing conditions and subsidizes premiums based on income, he said.
Yet, there can still be challenges for artists in getting health insurance if their recording labels donโt provide it, according to Levitt.
โIf income is volatile, premiums can fluctuate and be unpredictable because subsidies are based on actual income for the year,โ Levitt said. โSo an artist who has no income for a period of time can be left with no viable health insurance options.โ
โIt makes it really hard, especially for starving artists,โ said Carolyn McClanahan, a physician and certified financial planner based in Jacksonville, Florida.
‘A flaw in the industry at large’
Jeff Rabhan, the former chair of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York Universityโs Tisch School of the Arts, said in a guest column in The Hollywood Reporter that โRoanโs call for record labels to pay artists a livable wage and provide health care was noble โ but also wildly misinformed.โ
In theย column, published Feb. 5, Rabhan said โif labels are responsible for artistsโ wages, health care and overall well-being, where does it end and personal responsibility begin?โ
โShould artists have better health-care options? Absolutely,โ Rabhan said in the column. โSounds like a union thing to me. Most independent managers donโt have insurance, either โ itโs a flaw in the industry at large, not just on the label side.โ
Since those in the music industry are often paid as independent contractors, that makes it more likely they will forgo coverage, according to McClanahan, founder of Life Planning Partners and a member of theย CNBC Financial Advisor Council.
โUnfortunately, many are not part of a union and are on their own in getting health insurance,โ she said. โSadly, many self-employed people donโt understand the Affordable Care Act and how to obtain insurance on their own.โ
Even today, there are aboutย 25 million uninsured Americans, KFF research shows.
โMost of the country is involved in [an] employer/employee relationship where the company is responsible for their wages, health care, and some care about your well-being. However, most artists donโt have this luxury and donโt understand they are basically running their own business,โ McClanahan said.
โAt least give them the tools.โ
CNBCโs attempts to reach Roan for comment were not successful, but Roan responded to Rabhan on Instagram by saying she donated $25,000 to support โstruggling dropped artists.โ
