Actor and singer Cheyenne Jackson, who starred on Broadway and appeared in dozens of television series such as “American Horror Story,” “30 Rock” and “Glee,” never thought she might lose her health insurance.
But in a harrowing moment last year, the actors’ union realized they were several thousand dollars short of the minimum amount of about $28,000 a year to qualify for health care through SAG-AFTRA. Otherwise, she would lose the plan, which included her husband and 11-year-old twins.
“The auditions weren’t coming. It was a really lean, lean period,” Jackson said. “I guess I just took my insurance for granted. I thought it would always happen.”
Jackson and other actors have been speaking openly about their struggles to qualify for SAG-AFTRA health care amid declines in film and television production in Hollywood, the offshoring of film jobs, job losses from industry consolidation and concerns about artificial intelligence attacks.
Jackson reflected on the experience during his stay at the Atlanta airport on Sunday for his one-man musical show, the “Midlife Torso Tour.” He decided to offer to highlight other union members struggling with earnings on social media. He said he received hundreds of messages within 24 hours of sharing the project idea on Instagram.
Jackson thanked fellow Oscar- and Emmy-winning actor Kathy Bates, with whom he worked on four seasons of “American Horror Story,” for helping him get through the past year. He sent her a message explaining his situation. He called her back within five minutes and said, “I have good news and bad news,” she recalled saying.
The good news, he explained, was that he was cast in CBS’s “Matlock,” a revival of the ’80s legal drama starring him as a kickass criminal defense attorney. The bad news was that he would only have four lines and his character would not have a name.
“‘Sign me up!'” Jackson said. “I thought,” he said. “I was grateful and came and did my four lines.”
He said Bates “really paid the price for this.”
Actors’ health insurance plans are often administered by performing arts unions rather than distributed by a single corporate employer. Producers and studios contribute to a joint health fund based on union contracts, wages and hours. If workers accumulate or pay for a predetermined number of hours, they may be eligible for coverage for up to one year.
However, dry spells and uncertainty in the industry due to industry closures and industry strikes due to the Covid-19 pandemic have highlighted players’ struggles to maintain insurance as their workforce shrinks. A few years ago, stories abounded about players losing health insurance while dealing with heart problems or undergoing cancer treatment, and in recent months players have renewed their concerns.
“I Saw the TV Glow” star Jack Haven posted a video on YouTube in September saying they were in “a bit of an emergency.” They need to make $4,000 by the end of the month to keep their insurance, Haven said. In the video, Haven said they can do “pretty much any job.”
This month, former Nickelodeon star Drake Bell of “Drake & Josh” posted a screenshot of SAG-AFTRA’s health plan website showing he would need to earn about $11,450 more to qualify.
“Don’t be an actor. Don’t join SAG,” Bell wrote, using a middle finger emoji and tagging union president Sean Astin in the post.
SAG-AFTRA spokeswoman Pamela Greenwalt did not respond to a request for comment. But the union has long been open-minded about the financial impacts of the pandemic and other industry headwinds that have led to reduced employer contributions.
In December 2020, a group of SAG-AFTRA members filed a lawsuit against the union’s board of trustees over changes to the health plan. Actors aged 65 and over who receive their retirement will no longer be able to count their earnings within the annual threshold. A provision that allowed actors over 40 with ten years of credit to qualify for coverage at a reduced level of $13,000 in annual earnings was also eliminated.
The union acknowledged renewed challenges during the SAG-AFTRA strike in 2023. The union’s national executive director, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, told The Times that year that earning enough to qualify for health insurance had become “a real source of concern and concern for many members.”
At the union’s national board meeting at the Miracle Mile office over the weekend, Astin addressed members’ frustrations with economic pressures in a recorded speech, saying the union was using “every bit of leverage we have to make sure there’s a place for working performers in whatever this industry is.”
It can take years for members to build enough union work to qualify for health insurance. Some who have worked in the industry for years never do this. Reportedly, only 14% of the union’s 160,000 members have access to union health care. More than 100,000 of SAG-AFTRA’s members are actors and performers, including dancers, DJs, journalists and radio show hosts.
Miller Tai, the voice actor for the new Paramount+ animated movie “Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender,” said he joined the union in 2017 and has had no trouble meeting the minimum earnings in recent years because he has been eligible for the past seven years. He thinks social media noise obscures the real problem: a broken healthcare industry that harms people beyond actors.
“We have a greedy system that increases prices second by second,” Tai said. “This is a problem for every industry where we rely on our employers for healthcare.”
In 2027, minimum earnings will increase to $28,933. Quarterly premiums will increase from $375 to $390 for a participant, with higher amounts for added dependents. According to the union’s website, actors with certain credits who lose eligibility can temporarily keep their health insurance at a reduced rate for up to 18 months through the federal program known as COBRA.
Jackson said that starting over each year is difficult and unpredictable, even for people like himself who appear on many television shows and “make good money on the leftovers.” He said that one year he could make $300,000 acting, but the next year he could make close to 5% of that amount. He said he earned his minimum earnings this year by taking on more commercial work and starring in a vertically filmed microdrama.
“I did a few things that I had never done before and never thought I would do,” Jackson said.
Jackson’s social media project now has a spot on Instagram called One Job Away, and he began posting on Tuesday morning. He said his manager’s assistants and others on his team are considering the requests. More than a dozen photos of players have already been posted with captions listing the amount they need to make to minimize their winnings and disclosing their past credits.
“To me, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal to say I was struggling and needed to find the next job,” he said. “But I understand why a lot of people don’t want to say it. They don’t want to seem needy or come across in any way. I understand that, but I think the more we talk about it, the less shame and less stigma there will be about it, because it’s just like that “It happens.”