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After Chappell Roan’s Grammy Speech, Here Are Healthcare Resources For Music Artists
Roan’s Grammys speech called out the lack of healthcare options for artists who are trying to make it in the music business. Here are some organizations trying to help.
After Atlantic Records dropped Chappell Roan when “Pink Pony Club” didn’t take off in 2020, the singer struggled without healthcare and a “livable wage,” she said in her Best New Artist speech at the Grammy Awards Sunday night. “I told myself if I ever won a Grammy, and I got to stand up here in front of the most powerful people in music,” Roan said from the stage on Music’s Biggest Night, “I would demand that labels and the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a livable wage and healthcare, especially to developing artists.”
But, music-industry healthcare advocates say, several resources are available to artists, from major-label signees’ eligibility in the SAG-AFTRA union plan to alternative plans offered by the American Federation of Musicians and the American Association of Independent Music. And there are “concierge” services run by the Music Health Alliance and the Entertainment Community Fund, which advise artists on which healthcare plans are most beneficial.
The ultimate goal, according to Kevin Erickson, executive director of the Future of Music Coalition, a Washington, D.C., lobbying group, is a single-payer U.S. system or Medicare for All — almost certainly impossible while Republicans control the government. But major labels could affect change in the long term. “It’s just a much more efficient system, and the majors in particular certainly should understand that because, as multi-nationals, they’ve experienced that in the other territories,” he says. “They know that a better world is possible. They need to step up and help make it happen.”
