Hollywood writers and actors struggle to get health insurance after strikes

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In April, actress Miki Yamashita said she received a health diagnosis requiring surgery to remove non-cancerous tumors. It was then that the artist, who appeared on Cobra Kai and voiced a character on The Lion Guardhas started the race to try to qualify for her union’s health insurance plan by June 30. If she has earned enough on eligible projects or worked enough days by then, she could be covered by the plan at the end of the year, when she says she needs the medical procedure.

But meeting the plan’s requirements would be more difficult than usual. For nearly four months of his qualifying period, his union, SAG-AFTRA, was on strike against film and television companies, and Yamashita was barred by union rules from working on many projects. In the months since, production hasn’t fully rebounded in the Los Angeles area as the entertainment industry continues to contract. As of mid-June, Yamashita — who says he’s been on the union’s health plan on and off throughout his career and has occasionally secured different coverage through outside jobs — was still about $12,000 behind the required income threshold. (As a performer who focuses on lead acting work, she says it’s less realistic for her to meet the alternative requirement of a particular number of days worked. Yamashita, who is an elected union delegate, spoke on her own behalf, not on SAG-AFTRA’s behalf.) “Barring a miracle, I doubt I’ll actually reach the threshold by (June) 30,” she says. “I’ll keep fighting until that deadline comes,” at which point she’ll evaluate other health insurance options.

More than six months after Hollywood’s historic double strike officially ended, other writers and actors are finding themselves in a similar situation. SAG-AFTRA performers generally must earn at least $27,000 in covered income or work at least 104 days in a 12-month period to qualify for health insurance coverage starting in 2024. (In 2023, before the SAG-AFTRA strike, only about 25,000 union members out of about 160,000 met those requirements.) Writers Guild of America members, meanwhile, must earn $43,862 in covered income over four quarters to be eligible for the Writers Guild-Industry Health Fund; starting July 1, they must earn $45,397.

To be sure, health plans offer some leniency to participants after months of strikes. The Writers Guild-Industry Health Fund and the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan, which operate separately from their affiliated unions and are managed by trustees drawn from both union and management, offer one-quarter extensions of health coverage if union members meet certain requirements.

These extensions made it possible to obtain additional deadlines, but were not a miracle solution for some members, as the Writers Guild of America West recognized in a press release which placed the blame on Hollywood management. “Studios’ decisions in recent years have disrupted employment in the industry: they reduced the number of projects developed and produced and caused two strikes. The Guild cares deeply about authors who lose health coverage and will continue to fight for quality health care for authors and work with organizations like the Entertainment Community Fund to ensure access when Guild coverage expires,” the Guild said.

Meanwhile, creatives of all levels are struggling to meet the demands. Tracker And Waffles + Mochi Writer David Radcliff is $5,000 away from requalifying for the Writers Guild-Industry Health Fund. After receiving an extension of coverage, he must make up his income gap by Sept. 30. Radcliff, who has cerebral palsy, says, “For someone who uses a wheelchair and crutches and has a lifelong condition, having insurance, especially solid insurance like the one the Writers Guild offers, there’s a sense of security and stability in that.” He says he’s trying not to be “too optimistic or too pessimistic” as he considers requalifying this fall.

William Sadler, a veteran performer who has played roles in Hawaii five-0, The Shawshank Redemption And Die Hard 2has been a SAG-AFTRA member since 1977 and doesn’t recall having trouble qualifying for union health insurance in years past. A year ago, he said, his wife was diagnosed with lung cancer, and he has since turned down her job because of a desire to spend time with her in their southeastern New York home. Meanwhile, there were fewer choices during his qualifying period because of the strikes.

Sadler says he’s trying to reach his income threshold by Sept. 30 without spending long periods away from his wife, who is also on the plan. “It’s a terrible situation at the best of times, but it’s made worse by the fact that I really feel like I’m under pressure to find a job that meets that requirement,” he says. “This is not the time to go without health insurance.” For now, Sadler says he’s considering taking a quick job in Los Angeles that would normally be staffed by a local employee and would pay for his own travel and accommodation.

Chelsea Schwartz, SAG-AFTRA member (Rebel Moon (parts one and two) has been a union member for nearly a decade and has been on her health insurance plan for most of that time, doing fill-ins and background work. She lost her SAG-AFTRA insurance in early 2024, which she says happened because of the decline in work during the actors’ and writers’ strikes. Now, she’s trying to work 65 more days by September 30. That’s been difficult in the context of Hollywood’s continued contraction: “This is the slowest I’ve ever seen my industry. I probably submit at least a hundred posts a week,[and]I think I average about four days on set a month.”

A veteran SAG-AFTRA actress who declined to be named but is playing the lead in a summer movie is also at risk of losing her insurance and must meet her earnings threshold by June 30. “When you’re an actress of a certain profile, it’s not a good feeling to have to say to your agents, ‘Hey, can you get me a guest role in a movie that’s going to have someone my age in it because otherwise I’m going to lose my health insurance?’ It shouldn’t be like that,” she said.

The situation has not gone unnoticed by casting directors, who sometimes work to help actors meet their qualifying thresholds. Casting director Tineka Becker (The mysterious Benedict Society, Heist) says the casting community has a few private Facebook groups where “over the last four years, (there has been) a very obvious and concerted effort to both share information about actors at risk of losing their health insurance and to actually try to help casting actors with the problem by trying to find them roles.”

Actors and writers are also revealing their struggles to qualify on social media. Yamashita posted a video on May 10 asking for help finding work; it was shared and liked by thousands of people on the X platform alone. Since then, she has been “working pretty steadily,” she says. “I have been incredibly touched and blessed by this outpouring of goodwill.”

The writer Carlos Cisco (Star Trek: Discovery, East Los Angeles High School) is another worker who disclosed his health insurance situation on X — in his case, he’s set to lose his coverage after June 30. He says his “ship has sailed” now by re-qualifying for the health insurance plan before it expired, and he applied for Medi-Cal.

Overall, the decision to go public wasn’t a difficult one for Cisco. He was inspired by seeing another writer do the same. “If there’s one thing we’ve all learned from the strike, it’s that we need to be open about our issues with each other,” he says. “Most often we share the same problems and we are not as isolated as we think. »