Artists today: bandaging their own ears?
  • Artists today: bandaging their own ears?

For my column this week I visited the Artist Clinic—held every Wednesday night at Country Doctor Community Clinic—only to find that zero artists were there.

I found also, in fact, that no artists have ever gone to the Artist Clinic to redeem their $75 voucher (available twice a year) for basic services and/or prescriptions.

Why aren’t artists using the program designed for them?

It started in January and requires only that artists be artists and be uninsured. (For the first few months, there were income requirements, but those were removed last month.)

Is it that artists don’t know about it? That $75 twice a year is too small a sum to motivate participation?

Artist Trust, a sponsor of the program, is perplexed. Column here.

Jen Graves (The Stranger’s former arts critic) mostly writes about things you approach with your eyeballs. But she’s also a history nerd interested in anything that needs more talking about, from male...

15 replies on “Where the Sick Artists At?”

  3. At a normal hospital, $75 won’t cover an ER visit, or an x-ray. Maybe an aspirin, maybe. Definitely not a week’s worth of a brand name medication of any type.

    Neat idea though!

  4. Yeah, terrific concept, but even $150/year doesn’t cover much. I’m an artist, self-employed, carry individual insurance coverage which is an arm and a leg, even for pretty barebones coverage. Even a basic yearly physical plus lab tests costs at least $400 in most practices/hospitals — unless services are being discounted.

    But the major problem here could be a marketing one. I’ve never heard of this program before.

  5. I’ve mentioned this program to several of my peers, and the first response is a sort of blank stare, then “huh, never heard of it”. The next response has been some variation on “$150 a year – what do I get, an aspirin and a ‘kiss to make it better’?”.

    So, reiterating the other comments: it’s a combination of not getting the word out (and no, just putting it up on your web site or mentioning it in your Constant Contact e-mail isn’t going to reach most of the people who could qualify for this), and a perception amongst artists that there’s no real value in it in the first place.

  6. Maybe because Country Doctor kind of sucks…

    This opinion is based on the following:
    1)refused to treat someone I know who didn’t have insurance
    2)seriously compromised the health of another friend by prescribing a medication that required a simple liver test before prescribing but didn’t give the test which resulted in said friend having a nasty reaction to the medication
    3)that whole “one of their doctors was molesting female patients” thing from last year…

  8. Another problem is that there’s no incentive to go to the doctor if you’re uninsured. In fact, it’s the opposite. If you go to the doctor while uninsured and are diagnosed with a chronic disease, you are fucked. You will never be insurable again (at least not until the government gets involved).

  11. I actually tried to go to the Artist Clinic earlier this year and the receptionist had no idea what I was talking about, even when I handed her a flier advertising the event. She was perplexed.

    So, if the artists don’t know about it, and CDCC doesn’t know about it, I’m frankly kind of amazed the Stranger knows about it.

    Great idea, though!

  12. As someone who has been uninsureable due to a pre-existing condition for the lsst 18 years, I can say the Country Doc has not sucked where my health has been concerned.

  13. Sounds to me like Artist Trust, The Stranger and Country Doctor need to have a sit down discussion to figure outhow to make artists better aware of the clinic’s program. Not everyone who goes to a clinic is going for something so serious as a life threatening issue….could be VD, a sprain, flu issues, etc.

  15. so you just walk in and say. hi im an artist? and get 75 dollars off? sweet. i could have used that for my last UTI. it would have covered it. and the meds. and i usually get them 2xs a year… the only reason i go to the doctor. shut it you haters. its better than nothing.

Comments are closed.