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Artist’s Note (March 2012): When I took on the subject of accessing healthcare as my focus of “social inquiry,” I did not see the big picture. I was learning with every portrait. Three years into the project, I see how the implications of a person’s health insurance status fits so neatly into this puzzle of how the for-profit industry has backed the American public into a corner. (My point is not to vilify business here. Simply, certain lopsided for-profit market forces can be identified in the lives of real people who experience great difficulties accessing healthcare or managing claims.) I will from time to time comment on those puzzle pieces that are real lives as they relate to the whole. I will include in the “artist’s notes” under some portraits, the observations gleaned from over three years of interviews and portraits about how we access healthcare in the US.
This is a series of what will be 100-plus paintings depicting a cross-section of Americans. The titles of the paintings designate the kind of health insurance coverage or lack of coverage the sitters have. The goal is to paint a picture of the American health care system in the faces of our country’s citizens from the very best health coverage to the most horrific of circumstances resulting from a person’s lack of coverage. Who are we when it comes to health care? Let’s not be afraid to look at real people and be touched by their experiences – from the best to the worst – as we navigate this very big issue. There is no agenda but to ask, “What’s your experience? What are your thoughts on the subject?”
Share your stories. Have an opinion? Let’s hear it.
Anonymous, thanks for your thoughts!!!!!
I love what you are doing here! I have been the victim both ways. As a working adult, I was given unnecessary care and tests due to sheer incompetence in the mental health profession. When I regained my sanity by stopping the 6 prescription medications a day for an illness I don’t even have, I discovered I had cancer on my face and kidney disease. Now I have NO insurance to fight those, but at least I’m sane!
Theresa, one day you are going to paint me. I’ll let you know when … and it will be the silliest painting you have ever done because the only thing crazy is our medical profession and what they are doing to the insured and uninsured alike! I like you, girl … you have guts!!!
LOL…Thx Robin. Appreciate you looking at the project.
this is an amazing project and as a fellow artist, I feel inspired! Maybe I should stop painting vegetables!
Keep it up!
Thanks Milt. Well said.
I am both a physician and an artist and certainly an advocate of universal health assurance as well as insurance. It is heartening to me to see such an important social issue communicated through art. Art ought to be more than a commercially hyped vehicle for cachet- it ought to communicate about personal and social issues in an honest and meaningful way.
The cost to society of not providing for basic fairness through support of social support systems is far greater than the monetary cost of providing support. The remedies will eventually evolve, although many people will be harmed before that happens.
Ruth,Thank you so much for sharing your story. Heartbreaking and all too common. If you would like to have your son’s portrait included in this series please contact me at t@artassocialinquiryl.org This project is all about raising awareness so what happened to your son stops happening.
I am 76, still working as a psychotherapist. Last year, my son David, who would have been 50 in 8 days, died in his sleep. A placque on a main artery ruptured and he bled to death. He was in the food industry and for 10 or 15 years had a managerial-level job and they did not offer health care in his employment package. So, for those 10/15 years he had no health care. He got laid off and his next job, which he got in a few months, did provide health care. But his doctors were not able to get enough information in time to possibly prevent his sudden death. Cut defense and Pentagon budget, put money into health/mental heath research and Universal Coverage.
nsv: Thanks so much for your post. Well, I can’t say I am surprised by any of it. I have heard so many stories over the years. But yes, yours is a new angle. Please contact me at t@artassocialinquiry.org. I would love to talk to you about your story. Sometimes the complexity in trying to access healthcare in this country is like trying to untangle a ball of knots. And these are the insured! I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,
T
What a marvelous, thought-provoking, heart-breaking project. I am very moved by your work. May I supply a couple of links for your consideration?
First, a social activist discovers the difficulty in maintaining individual health insurance while moving from state to state. http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2011/08/16/have-individual-health-insurance-policy-preexisting-conditions-want-move-good-luck. I recently encountered a similar difficulty, and I wasn’t even moving: my previous employer’s health insurance was in another state. Even though the carrier was a national one – THE one – I wasn’t able to convert my group insurance to an individual plan because that other state didn’t owe me anything as a non-resident, and my state didn’t owe me anything because I hadn’t had a group plan in my state. I am now on a high-deductible individual plan, hoping like hell none of my family’s pre-existing conditions will kick in until six months go by. Great strategy, isn’t it?
Second, and also quite applicable to me: “Insured While Fat.” http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2011/09/insured-while-fat.html. The author of this post is at least fortunate, if you can call it that, to be employed by a company that offers insurance. Fat people on the individual market often find it impossible to buy health insurance, simply by virtue of being fat. This is nothing new, and Marilyn Wann of FatSO? has written eloquently about it. Regardless of what the medical world and the general public think of fat people and their health risks (and there is considerable data suggesting that those risks, while certainly present, have been vastly overstated and the conclusions are tainted by ties between research and corporations profiting from weight-loss services), I cannot see how refusing to insure fat people accomplishes any health goals at all. This dilemma would make a striking portrait, in my opinion.
Thanks for doing what you do!
[...] forward to the present. I am 45 portraits into my social inquiry of how we access healthcare in the US. My goal is to paint at least 100 [...]
To the lady I got “into it” with in the parking lot of the post office, my apologies. I can’t help but think of the people I paint and who suffer. But the point of Art As Social Inquiry is to create a safe place for us to challenge our own opinions. You didn’t need me in your face. Theresa
[...] of our broken health care system to life. Learn more about her project, Art of Social Inquiry (http://artassocialinquiry.org/projects/healthcare/) and read a special story from WHYY on her work and its impact in Pennsylvania [...]
Thank you for your comments about a “conversion plan.” I had never heard of it. But you are very smart to not have uninterrupted coverage if you have a pre-existing condition. The other thing is that if you were denied because of a pre-existing condition and you went uninsured for 6 months, you would probably qualify for PA Fair Care (Each state has a pool for those with pre-existing conditions. Check to see how many slots are available in your state.) These pools were established under the Affordable Care Act, and they will exist until 2014 when they will be moot because no one can be denied due to a pre-existing condition. One of my subjects in the project has it. He pays about $283/month. It’s good insurance. It’s less expensive because it’s subsidized by the Affordable Care Act. Thanks for posting. Good luck!
If you are about to graduate from college and will lose the insurance that you received through being a student, ask the insurer about a CONVERSION PLAN. I had never heard of it before my partner asked them. I have IBX Keystone Health Plan East. The bill is enormous, lost the dental insurance, have a deductible on my prescriptions, but they said that as long as I keep paying, I will never lose the coverage. This is essential for me as I was denied due to pre-existing conditions when I tried to apply individually. There is a small window in which to apply for the plan after your college plan ends, so be sure to stay on top of it.
Thank you for your thoughts, Midge. I spoke about Jenny to a group in CA this past weekend. I showed a slide of the painting and called her by name. I wanted to make the connection between our opinions/actions and real peoples lives. I will be talking about Jenny for decades to come. And after 20 years I hope I will be saying, “The health care system once operated like….but that was a long time ago.”
Each time I see Jenny’s painting I am brought back to the horror of the moment when she died at 24, 7 months pregnant. As a parent this image does not frighten me but it makes me horribly sad to remember what she went through and how the family was affected then and will be forever. Thank you so much for your brilliant Social Commentary on the people who have died at the hands of the health care system in this country.
Thank you so much for commenting on the portrait of the young woman who died. Yes, I agree,the portrait is scary and morbid. But I wanted to show how our current health care system did not work for her and it cost her her life. All politics aside, horrible things are happening that perhaps we’re not all aware of or they are desensitized to. The painting depicts that for me. I have been in close contact with the mother of the girl in the portrait. She agrees that she wants the circumstances of her daughter’s death known so it never happens again. So she supports the painting.(I am painting a beautiful painting of the young woman in the portrait that came to me in a dream. And that will be for her mother.) Thank you again for commenting. Encourage others to do so.
The picture of the 23 year old that passed away with the hat on is SCARY, I don’t believe her family would want to see her depicted that way, I know I certainly don’t she was a beautiful person with a beautiful soul and this picture does not do her justice it is just down right scary and frankly MORBID… she deserves to be shown in a beautiful way not a deathly way… we want to remember her life not an artistic vision of death being depicted in a picture!!!!!!! I suggest you either take it down and get rid of it, or paint another one that would honor her not scare everyone or make people sad.
WOW! LOVE where you are going with this! These portraits really speak to me. The people really come through and the 23 year old that passed, you really captured this scary feeling and she seems like she is fading away in the portrait. Her true self anyway. The portrait seems to depict the aftermath of the ugliness of an unkind system. SAD.
Thank you, Sherry!
Dear Theresa,
Your portraits are getting better and better. Keep up the Good Work!!!
sincerely,
Sherry McVickar
I am lucky that I (and our son) get health benefits through my Partner’s plan. We are lucky that the Health Institution she works for recognizes Domestic Partners. We had to jump through relatively small hoops to get them. They do take up a pretty big chunk of the salary pie, but otherwise, we’d be paying almost 20K a year for them. I work for myself…and used to use Penns. Chamber of Commerce to get group health rates. It was the most basic insurance a single person could get…but it was all I could afford. It was a risk/benefit thing, and luckily, I was young and healthy enough that it got me by…I don’t know what I’d do now…..with a son to support if I was on my own again….move to Europe where healthcare is Nationalized????
I believe everyone should have health care. If you are a drug addict or poor you can get it through the state. If you are rich and have the money you can get it becaue you can afford it. Or others that get it through their jobs with great benefits. What about the middle man that doesn’t get it through their jobs? They aren’t poor enough to get it for free or they end up paying through the nose to have it. Also, I would like to see health care embracing alternative medicine. Why can’t people choose the route they want to go when it comes to there bodies? Healthcare only pays for main stream medicine and I think that’s a crime!
Interestingly, NY’s governor Paterson wants to address this issue of young uninsured adults who are not yet covered by health insurance in their jobs.
To all those who say “We can’t afford to pay for any more subsidized health care” realize that if we don’t pay for good health care on the front end (routine office visits and tests) you will pay on the back end in the ER. That’s where sick people go when they are desperate. Then the hospitals don’t get paid for the ER visit. And the government has to reimburse the hospital so they don’t close their doors. We pay the government in increased taxes. We are going to pay one way or another. Better to do it in an organized, planned fashion. Unless of course, we are willing to become a country that allows people to die alone behind their doors or on the street.