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The Health-Insurance Horror Stories of 7 Musicians
“You realize the whole system is broken.”
In her February Grammy acceptance speech, Chappell Roan called on record labels to “offer a livable wage and health care, especially to developing artists.” About a month later, former New York Dolls front man David Johansen died at 75, just weeks after launching a GoFundMe to cover the bills from his cancer treatment. The past five years — with the pandemic, inflation, and now the Trump administration’s goal of kicking millions off Medicaid — have only made things worse, according to Michelle Lewis, who co-founded the advocacy nonprofit Songwriters of North America, or SONA, with Letters to Cleo’s Kay Hanley. Once, I got super-dizzy when they wouldn’t let me wear an oxygen machine onstage in Denver because it wasn’t “a look.” Flights aren’t good for heart disease, but another time, we flew to Paris, and they made me carry a bunch of gear when I should’ve been resting in a wheelchair.
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