Actor and singer Cheyenne Jackson, who has starred on Broadway and held roles on dozens of television series including \u201cAmerican Horror Story,\u201d \u201c30 Rock\u201d and \u201cGlee,\u201d had never considered that he might lose his health insurance.<\/p>\n
But in a grim moment last year, he realized he was several thousand dollars short of the roughly $28,000-annual minimum to qualify for healthcare through actors union SAG-AFTRA. Otherwise, he would lose the plan that also covered his husband and their 11-year-old twins. <\/p>\n
\u201cAuditions weren\u2019t coming in. It was just a really lean, lean time,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cI think I just took my insurance for granted. I thought it would always happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson and other actors are speaking openly about struggles qualifying for SAG-AFTRA healthcare amid declines in film and television production<\/a> in Hollywood, an exodus of film jobs abroad<\/a>, job loss from industry consolidation<\/a> and concerns of AI incursions.<\/a> <\/p>\n Jackson reflected on the experience while on a layover Sunday in Atlanta\u2019s airport for his one-man musical act, \u201cMidlife Torso Tour.\u201d He decided to offer to spotlight other union members on social media who were short on their earnings. Within 24 hours of posting about the project idea on Instagram, he had received hundreds of messages, he said.<\/p>\n Jackson credited his friend Kathy Bates, the Oscar- and Emmy-winning actor he worked with on four seasons of \u201cAmerican Horror Story,\u201d for helping him pull through last year. He had texted her describing his plight. She called him back within five minutes and told him, \u201cI have good news and bad news,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n The good news, she explained, was that she got him a part on \u201cMatlock,\u201d the CBS reimagining of an \u201980s legal drama where she stars as a brilliant criminal defense attorney. The bad news was that he would have only four lines and his character wouldn\u2019t have a name.<\/p>\n \u201cI was like, \u2018Sign me up!\u2019\u201d Jackson said. \u201cI was grateful, and I showed up and did my four lines.\u201d <\/p>\n Bates had \u201creally paid it forward,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Actors\u2019 health insurance plans are typically managed by performing arts unions rather than dispensed by a single corporate employer. Producers and studios contribute to a shared health fund based on union contracts, wages and hours worked. If workers accumulate a preset number of hours or pay, they can qualify for up to a year of coverage.<\/p>\n But dry spells and uncertainty in the industry because of the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown and industry strikes have shed light on actors\u2019 struggles to keep insurance as work dwindles. Several years ago, stories proliferated of performers losing health insurance as they contended with heart problems<\/a> or underwent cancer treatment, and in recent months, actors have again aired concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cI Saw the TV Glow\u201d star Jack Haven posted a video on YouTube in September saying they were \u201cin a bit of an emergency situation.\u201d Haven said they needed to earn $4,000 by the end of the month to keep their insurance. In the video, Haven said they would do \u201cpretty much any job.\u201d<\/p>\n This month, former Nickelodeon star Drake Bell of \u201cDrake & Josh\u201d posted a screenshot of SAG-AFTRA\u2019s health plan website showing that he needed to earn about $11,450 more to qualify. <\/p>\n \u201cDo not become an actor. Do not join SAG,\u201d Bell wrote,<\/a> using a middle finger emoji and tagging the union\u2019s president, Sean Astin, in the post.<\/p>\n SAG-AFTRA spokesperson Pamela Greenwalt did not respond to a request for comment. But the union has long been open<\/a> about the financial effects of the pandemic and other industry headwinds that have led to lower employer contributions. <\/p>\n In December 2020, a group of SAG-AFTRA members sued the union\u2019s board of trustees over changes to the health plan. Actors 65 years and older who vested their pensions could no longer count their earnings from residuals in the annual threshold. A provision allowing actors older than 40 with a decade of credits to qualify for coverage at a reduced level of $13,000 in annual earnings was also eliminated.<\/p>\n The union acknowledged renewed challenges during the SAG-AFTRA strike in 2023<\/a>. The union\u2019s national executive director, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, told The Times<\/a> that year that earning enough to qualify for health coverage had become a \u201creal source of anxiety and concern for many members.\u201d<\/p>\n At a meeting of the union\u2019s national board<\/a> over the weekend at its Miracle Mile office, Astin in a recorded speech<\/a> addressed members\u2019 frustrations about economic pressures, saying that the union is using \u201cevery bit of leverage we have to make sure working performers have a place in whatever this industry becomes.\u201d <\/p>\n It can take years for members to build up enough union work to qualify for the health insurance. Some who have worked in the industry for years never do. Reportedly only about 14%<\/a> of the union\u2019s 160,000 members qualify for the union\u2019s healthcare. Of SAG-AFTRA\u2019s membership, which also includes dancers, DJs, journalists and radio program hosts, more than 100,000 members are actors and performers. <\/p>\n Miller Tai, a voice actor on the new Paramount+ animated film \u201cAvatar Aang: The Last Airbender,\u201d said he joined the union in 2017 and had not struggled in recent years to meet the earnings minimum, having qualified for the last seven years. He feels that the noise on social media obscures the actual problem: a broken healthcare industry that is hurting people beyond just actors.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a greedy system raising prices by the second,\u201d Tai said. \u201cThis is a problem for any sector where we rely on our employers for healthcare.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2027, the earnings minimum will rise to $28,933. Quarterly premiums will rise from $375 to $390 for one participant, with higher amounts for added dependents. Actors with certain credits who lose their eligibility can temporarily keep their health coverage at a reduced rate for up to 18 months through the federal program known as COBRA, according to the union\u2019s website.<\/a><\/p>\n Jackson said starting over every year is tough and unpredictable even for people like him who have been in many television shows and make \u201cOK money on residuals.\u201d He said that although one year he might make $300,000 from acting, the next he might make closer to 5% of that amount. He said that he scraped together his minimum earnings this year by taking on more commercial gigs and acting in a vertically filmed microdrama<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI ended up doing a few things that I have never done before and never thought I would,\u201d Jackson said. <\/p>\n