Final fall, Ellen Haun and Dru Johnston had been hustling to get their medical health insurance sorted out for 2023. The Hollywood couple are members of SAG-AFTRA, the union representing actors and writers. Members need to earn about $26,000 a yr on union initiatives to be eligible for union insurance coverage.
And Haun was about $800 brief.
When she couldn’t e-book the gigs she wanted, Haun, with husband Johnston’s assist, got here up with a plan: to crowdfund sufficient cash to make their very own film starring Haun, referred to as “Ellen Wants Insurance coverage.”
On this episode of “An Arm and a Leg,” host Dan Weissmann speaks with Haun and Johnston about their brief movie, how they had been affected by the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, and their ongoing quest to remain insured.
Dan Weissmann
Host and producer of “An Arm and a Leg.” Beforehand, Dan was a workers reporter for Market and Chicago’s WBEZ. His work additionally seems on All Issues Thought of, Market, the BBC, 99 % Invisible, and Reveal, from the Middle for Investigative Reporting.
Credit
Emily Pisacreta
Producer
Adam Raymonda
Audio wizard
Ellen Weiss
Editor
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Transcript: To Get Well being Insurance coverage, This Couple Made a Film
Be aware: “An Arm and a Leg” makes use of speech-recognition software program to generate transcripts, which can include errors. Please use the transcript as a device however examine the corresponding audio earlier than quoting the podcast.
Dan: Hey there. OK, right here’s one thing I by no means anticipated to say — I’ve received a humorous, sort of candy story about medical health insurance. OK, perhaps candy and bitter. Right here it’s …
As we report this, it’s November, which implies it’s open enrollment for many individuals — time to get subsequent yr’s medical health insurance found out, each on the Obamacare exchanges and at numerous workplaces. A yr in the past, Ellen Haun and her husband Dru Johnston had been HUSTLING to get their medical health insurance arrange for 2023. In probably the most inventive potential method … by crowdfunding a inventive venture. They posted a video in fact.
Ellen: Hello, I’m Ellen, and I want medical health insurance.
Dru: And I’m Dru, and I additionally want medical health insurance.
Dan: Ellen and Dru work in Hollywood — performing and writing — and folk in that trade get their insurance coverage by the unions. However provided that they’ve racked up sufficient wages for union work over a 12-month interval. They’d been on Ellen’s insurance coverage by the actors’ union, SAG. However final fall, as they defined of their crowdfunding video, that union insurance coverage wasn’t wanting like a positive factor for the approaching yr.
Dru: Proper now, Ellen is $804 brief. So we’re making a brief movie.
Ellen: And that brief movie is known as “Ellen Wants Insurance coverage.”
Dan: The video outlined their plan: to make use of not simply Ellen however different actors who additionally wanted a bit assist getting over the end line to qualify.
Dru: Additionally, which brings up the following level, are you an actor that’s near hitting your medical health insurance? Then please get in contact.
Ellen: Sure, we wish to solid you. We would like you to have insurance coverage.
Dru: And if we increase extra money than our aim, we’ll use all of that solely
in the direction of casting extra actors and getting them insurance coverage.
Ellen: We’ll add components. We don’t care.
Dru: Yeah, this isn’t Shakespeare. This can be a script we wrote. We’ll add components.
Ellen: We will … We’ll make them up.
Dan: That was a yr in the past. And spoiler: They did make the movie. After all now they want insurance coverage for 2024. And Ellen’s union spent quite a lot of 2023 on strike, which has narrowed down the alternatives to earn that insurance coverage once more. So… I needed to speak with them!
[“An Arm and a Leg” theme music plays.]
That is “An Arm and a Leg” — a present about why well being care prices so freaking a lot, and what we are able to perhaps do about it. I’m Dan Weissmann. I’m a reporter, and I like a problem.
So the job we’ve picked right here is to take one of the enraging, terrifying, miserable components of American life, and convey you one thing entertaining, empowering and helpful.
[“An Arm and a Leg” theme music ends.]
Ellen and Dru met at a marriage.
Ellen: I used to be mates with the bride and Drew was mates with the groom. And on the bachelorette occasion, Emily had been, like, speaking about all the only guys that had been going to be on the wedding ceremony, however she had forgot to incorporate Dru on that record. So I used to be like, simply, I used to be like, why is that this man speaking to me a lot? He’s in all probability received a girlfriend someplace.
Dru: Seems I didn’t. After which, uh, we ended up, uh, beginning to date nearly instantly after that wedding ceremony.
Dan: By then, Ellen was incomes sufficient as an actor to qualify for medical health insurance, beginning with an advert for Xfinity Web and a recurring position as a legislation scholar on “Methods to Get Away with Homicide.”
Viola Davis: Ms. Chapin, are you able to inform us what the Fifth Modification is?
Ellen: The Fifth Modification? Um, proper.
It, um, assures your proper to safety from self incrimination.
Viola Davis: Are you asking me?
Ellen: No, that’s my reply.
Viola Davis: And it’s an accurate one.
Dan: Getting that insurance coverage was a giant skilled milestone. Greater than 85 % of SAG members don’t e-book sufficient union work to qualify– it takes about 26 thousand {dollars} throughout a one-year interval. (And, you recognize, in fact most actors, Ellen included, decide up different work on the facet, and even maintain down a day job.) For a lot of the previous couple of years, Ellen had no worries about making sufficient cash to qualify for insurance coverage. She’d been getting paid for a industrial that ran and ran, as a result of it was so terrific. You could have seen it. Even I’ve seen it … and I kinda by no means watch TV. Ellen performs BOTH components in it. She’s name heart worker
Claire in Phoenix: That is Claire in Phoenix, can I aid you?
Dan: And she or he’s a girl who’s dialed in for buyer help.
Ellen as buyer: Sure.
Claire in Phoenix: Nice.
Ellen as buyer: Appropriate.
Claire in Phoenix: Ma’am. This isn’t an automatic pc.
Ellen as buyer: Operator?
Claire in Phoenix: Ma’am? I’m right here. I’m stay.
Ellen as buyer: Wait, you’re actual?
Claire in Phoenix: Yeah! With Uncover Card, you may speak to an actual individual.
Dan: Ellen had been getting a “holding price” — to maintain her from auditioning for commercials for rivals.
Ellen: And I sort of knew behind my thoughts that like, okay, ultimately this holding price goes to go away as a result of this industrial isn’t working anymore.
Dan: After which final June, she received the decision.
Ellen: My agent was like, Hey, they’re releasing you from the holds. Uh, you’re not getting that cost. You, um, you’re free to audition for different commercials.
And I used to be like, okay, however what about that medical health insurance?
Dan: This was in June. She wanted to make one other 6 thousand {dollars}, by the top of December, to maintain her insurance coverage.
Ellen: And I believed, okay, I’ve received half the yr. Like that’s simply reserving like one different industrial.
Dan: However that wasn’t a positive factor. She’d performed it for years and years, however she needed to hedge her bets. She experimented with working as an additional.
Ellen: And I used to be getting like, fairly constant work, but in addition background work doesn’t pay very effectively.
Dan: $187 a day. Extra if there’s additional time, however nonetheless. It’s not that it’s not that a lot, particularly in the event you’re attempting to chip away at like a 6,000 stability.
I used to be like, I don’t know if I’m going to make this, um, I knew that it was positively going to be right down to the wire. In order that’s once I was like, you recognize what, perhaps we must always take into consideration making a film about this.
Dan: Truly, this was an concept that had sort of been on Dru’s shelf for a couple of years. As a comedy author for a TV speak present, Dru had gotten his insurance coverage from the screenwriter’s union, the WGA. After which in 2018 the present received canceled. Fortunate for Drew, he was married to Ellen by then, in order that they put him on her SAG insurance coverage. After which after that saga had ended, he had a enjoyable concept.
Dru: I used to be like, oh, you recognize what I ought to have performed is I ought to have simply made an internet sequence referred to as, “Dru Wants Insurance coverage.” After which I used to be like, effectively, it’s too late. I assume that’s an concept that I’m by no means going to need to do. After which flash ahead.
Dan: They’re in the identical boat! another time.
Besides now, it’s Ellen who’s brief, and nothing to fall again on. I requested in the event that they remembered the day once they determined to attempt making the movie. Dru was like, …
Dru: It was within the OBGYN’s workplace.
Dan: Yeah. They had been pregnant! This was the primary physician go to.
Dru: We had gone to the ultrasound. We noticed the child. We heard the heartbeat. We had been like, effectively, that we had been having the child. It’s coming.
Dan: Now they had been gonna see the physician, discuss subsequent steps.
Dru: And we had about 20 minutes in that ready room, simply sitting there sort of going like, okay, our life’s gonna change.
We received to make some, some selections, or we received to, like, determine, like, what room are we going to make use of? All that stuff. But in addition in the midst of that, we had been like, oh, additionally our medical health insurance goes … is about to expire.
Dan: Truly, it was going to expire precisely one month earlier than the child’s due date.
Dru: And I used to be like, effectively, shit, we’d like that medical health insurance. Um, and, and that’s when Ellen stated, I feel I have to make a film and we have to do this.
Dan: In order that they did! They banged out a script — and introduced a pal’s manufacturing firm on board. (The union doesn’t allow you to simply pay your self straight.) Which brings us to the purpose within the story once they made that crowdfunding video
[Bouncy music plays in the background.]
Dru: It’s a comedy about an actress named Ellen, and the issues she does to get insurance coverage.
Ellen: Issues like begging my agent for a job, praying to the gods for a shock residual examine, and even background work.
Additionally, the film’s nearly how laborious it’s to navigate insurance coverage on this nation.
[Bouncy music ends.
Dan: How’d it come out? That’s next.
This episode of “An Arm and a Leg” is produced in partnership with KFF Health News. That’s a nonprofit newsroom covering health care in America. Their journalism is terrific– wins all kinds of awards every year– and I’m honored to work with them.
Dan: So, Ellen and Dru did raise the money: more than 33 thousand dollars. They actually did beat their goal. The movie is delightfully meta. It starts with Ellen-the-character in her kitchen in the middle of a conversation with her best friend …
Best Friend: Why can’t you just pay the difference?
Ellen: Oh yeah, I tried. But I called and they told me that’s not allowed.
Best Friend: I thought that was the whole thing about health insurance in this country. You have to pay for it.
Ellen: Apparently, not when you want to. If I want to keep my health insurance, I have to book another SAG job by the end of the year.
Best Friend: Couldn’t you cast yourself in something?
Ellen: Like in what, my own movie? Yeah. I mean, I’d have to get funding,
write a script, hire a production team, get a payroll company, …
Dan: So just like the real Ellen did, movie-Ellen decides to go all out to book another commercial. And if you ever thought it might be fun to take a crack at a career in acting, the audition scene — with Ellen and a casting director — that might dissuade you.
Casting director: Alright, we’ll start on action and, uh, remember, this determines whether or not you can see a doctor in the next year.
Dan: Soon, we see Ellen looking up COBRA — which you may have looked up yourself, like if you ever left a job without your next gig — and your next insurance — lined up.
COBRA pitch: Losing your health insurance?
Don’t worry. It happens all the time. Cobra is here for you. …
Dan: And if you’ve looked at it, you know: COBRA is EXPENSIVE. Like, average employer coverage for a family costs more than 20 thousand dollars a year. So that’s the price range for COBRA.
COBRA pitch: The fact that it’s named after a deadly and venomous snake is just part of the fun, and has nothing to do with the fact that it feels like death. You made less money, and now you have to pay more.
Dan: On her agent’s advice, Ellen tries background work, another case of art imitating life. And, in a scene that really highlights some of the peculiarities about how all of this works, she debriefs with her friend, over drinks at a bar.
Best Friend: How is it?
Ellen: It’s not as bad as I thought, but it does not pay very well. You get a
lot more if you have a line.
Dan: And suddenly, another patron in the bar leans into the conversation… Bar patron: Excuse me, did you say you get more money if you have a line?
Ellen: Yeah.
Bar patron: Got it.
Dan: And another patron. Bar patron: Just one line?
Ellen: Yeah.
You get more if you have more than five lines, too.
Bar patron: Wow. Wow.
Dan:Now it’s everybody in the bar.
Bar patrons: Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.
Dan: The bit about a pay bump is real, of course. Including the bump for more-than-five-lines. And just to expand on that for a minute here – Dru experienced the downside of that rule — ridiculously, painfully — when he did a one-shot appearance on Orange Is the New Black. It was a big meaty scene, but somehow wasn’t more than five lines.
Dru: I was a lawyer and every line was about a half of a page of just legalese
Dru as Lawyer: based on copious witness testimony, the U. S. attorney has charged you and four others
[DUCKS UNDER: with inciting the riot. They allege that you created and maintained a secret riot bunker, and there’s also evidence that directly implicates you in the kidnapping and false imprisonment of Officer Desmond Piscatella…]
Dan: However that’s how a “line” will get outlined on this scenario: So long as no person interrupts you, a monologue is only one line. A job with 5 traces or much less will get referred to as an “under-five”
Dru: And I used to be like, that is an below 5? I used to be like, okay, effectively, there we go. I’ll simply lecture for 2 pages.
Dru as Lawyer: I’ve negotiated a plea deal for you. When you admit to the riot prices, they’re keen to drop every part else. This is superb.
Dan: We’ve got nonetheless not gotten to the top of Dru’s first line on this scene Dru as Lawyer: It’ll garner you the shortest potential sentence.
Dru as Lawyer: Do you perceive?
Dan: Again within the movie, the Ellen character continues to be freaking out when she reveals up for a health care provider’s appointment.
Dr Receptionist: Has your insurance coverage modified?
Ellen: No, nevertheless it may quickly, so I needed to just be sure you all would nonetheless take it.
Dr. Receptionist: Nicely, we take most insurances, so I’m positive we’ll be tremendous.
Ellen: Nice. Um, I used to be wanting on the California Insurance coverage Trade. Dr Receptionist: Uh, no.
Ellen: Excuse me?
Dr. Receptionist: No, we, we don’t take that.
Dan: And within the physician’s workplace– in one other echo of Ellen and Dru’s story– Ellen-the-character will get an ultrasound.
Ellen: Congratulations.
Dan: And she or he flashes again to the primary scene, along with her pal…
Greatest Buddy: Couldn’t you solid your self in one thing?
Ellen: Like in what? My very own film? (echos) My very own film?
Dan: And naturally, that’s the place she decides. She’s gonna do that. On her method out, she tells the receptionist…
Ellen: My insurance coverage will not be going to vary. You’ll be able to rely on it.
Dr. Receptionist: Um, okay.
Dan: Once I noticed the film, I didn’t know that Ellen Haun had been pregnant once they made it.
Dru: We by no means introduced it up in crowdfunding. However then once we had been making the film, we had been like, let’s simply use actual life. Not solely was it actual, it felt like the best technique to clarify it.
Dan: They shot the film over three days in December 2022. Making this movie on $33,000 and alter was a feat by itself. They paid 15 actors, and a crew. There was a location to hire, and tools…
Ellen: You’ve received to pay for meals to feed your solid and crew. And particularly, you recognize, everyone seems to be sort of working a bit bit below their charge so that you wish to purchase them good meals.
Dan: You’ve heard a few of the outcomes. I gained’t spoil the remainder. It’s a very-enjoyable 13 minutes. We’ll have a hyperlink wherever you’re listening to this. With the film wrapped by New Years, Ellen certified for her insurance coverage, so she was on it when their child Bruce was born a couple of weeks early.
Ellen: We spent three weeks within the NICU and the complete time that we had been within the hospital with him, we simply saved saying, I’m so glad we’ve got insurance coverage. I’m so glad we’ve got insurance coverage. I’m so glad we’ve got insurance coverage.
Dan: Only a few weeks after Bruce was born, Dru’s union– the Author’s Guild– went on strike. Then Ellen’s union went on strike too.
Ellen: We took Bruce to his very first picket when he was like two months previous. And I’ve been going, like, about, as soon as per week to, to picket with him. So everyone is aware of him at
the Disney Picket location. He’s a bit union child.
Dru: We are saying the joke, he went straight from labor to labor motion.
Dan: No joke, although: the SAG strike meant there was much less work for actors in 2023– fewer probabilities to earn cash and qualify for insurance coverage. The well being plan prolonged a grace interval to maintain of us from getting reduce off, and a brand new legislation in California lets employees who’re on strike get sponsored insurance coverage from the state’s Obamacare alternate. In the meantime, Ellen managed to e-book one other industrial — solely TV reveals and films had been focused by the strike, not advertisements — so their household is about for subsequent yr too.
It’s a cheerful ending … for now.
However this looks as if an exhausting merry-go-round to remain on for the remainder of your life. I requested Ellen and Dru how they felt about it.
Ellen: So one thing that has been good concerning the strike has been speaking to a bunch of our mates about how laborious it’s gotten during the last a number of years to make a dwelling doing this.
I used to be like in my late twenties once I received the SAG medical health insurance for the primary time. I believed, like, “Nice.” Like, “that is it.”
Dan: That was nearly ten years in the past. However in some way getting constant work truly received tougher over time. And that felt private.
Ellen: It was like feeling, like, emotionally, like there’s one thing fallacious with me that I’m not making the sum of money that I made earlier in my profession. And so, truthfully, that has been a pleasant a part of the strike has been realizing that, hey, that is occurring to all of us. It’s not simply occurring to me. It’s actually laborious.
Dan: But it surely’s not simply laborious for actors and writers.
Dru: My brother works in tech. Proper. And like, I feel the character of employment, throughout many industries has modified. And like, there isn’t actually that very same job safety that there was when, like, my dad and mom had been developing.
Dan: Dru thinks again to the time, years in the past, when he first give up his day job, to jot down and carry out full-time. It was contact and go at first. Like, week to week, it might really feel precarious.
Dru: I had a sort of a down week and I used to be like, perhaps it’s time to get an actual day job like my brother. And proper that week, he received laid off. He’s discovered one other job, he’s figured it out, nevertheless it was that second the place I used to be like, oh, there’s no job you could simply get and be like, now I’m set with medical health insurance. In order that’s an extended reply to say, I don’t suppose we’re leaving the leisure trade anytime quickly.
Ellen: Yeah, we’ve sort of put all of our chips on the desk.
Dan: And like Dru stated: Fewer of us today have jobs the place we don’t have to fret about the place our medical health insurance is coming from, or if it’s gonna be any good. I imply, if extra of us had that sort of safety, I’d actually by no means have began making this present. There can be no purpose to make it. However in fact, 5 years in, I don’t count on to expire of fabric.
As we publish this episode, we’ve additionally simply put out an installment of our First Support Package e-newsletter, this one sums up and updates all our greatest recommendation about decide the least-crappy medical health insurance for you.
I’ve discovered loads in 5 years. And we’re in a position to share what we’ve discovered since you’ve been supporting us. And in the event you can, that is the very best second to pitch in, as a result of proper now, each greenback you give — as much as a thousand {dollars} per individual! — get matched. Due to NewsMatch from the Institute for Nonprofit Information, each greenback you give us counts for double. The place to go is arm and a leg present, dot com, slash help. That’s https://armandalegshow.com/help/.
We’ll be again in three weeks with half one in every of a giant investigative story we’ve been engaged on … just about all yr. Discuss studying a ton. It’s been a wild journey. We’ve been in a position to try this — and we’ll be capable to share the outcomes with you– due to your help, and I’m super-thankful. I’ll depart you with that handle another time: arm and a leg present dot com, slash, help. Thanks! I’ll catch you in three weeks. Until then, handle your self.
This episode of “An Arm and a Leg” was produced by Emily Pisacreta and me, Dan Weissman and edited by Ellen Weiss.
Daisy Rosario is our consulting managing producer.
Adam Raymonda is our audio wizard.
Our music is by Dave Winer and Blue Dot Classes.
Gabrielle Healy is our managing editor for viewers. She edits the First Support Package Publication.
Bea Bosco is our consulting director of operations.
Sarah Ballema is our operations supervisor.
“An Arm and a Leg” is produced in partnership with KFF Well being Information — previously generally known as Kaiser Well being Information. That’s a nationwide newsroom producing in-depth journalism about healthcare in America, and a core program at KFF — an unbiased supply of well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism. You’ll be able to study extra about KFF Well being Information at: https://armandalegshow.com/about-x/partners-and-supporters/kaiserhealthnews/
Zach Dyer is senior audio producer at KFF Well being Information. He’s editorial liaison to this present.
Huge due to the Institute for Nonprofit Information for serving as our fiscal sponsor, permitting us to just accept tax-exempt donations. You’ll be able to study extra about INN at INN.org
And now for one in every of my favourite components of the gig … giving a shout out to a few of the individuals who’ve come aboard to help this present in the previous few weeks. Thanks presently to our supporters (Dan lists donors.) Thanks a lot!
“An Arm and a Leg” is a co-production of KFF Well being Information and Public Highway Productions.
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