Fractured Atlas has been a leader at representing the arts community's needs on the issue of health insurance reform since 2002. Our work is guided by a few core principles:

  1. Health insurance can't depend on employment. Independent workers deserve the same access to quality coverage that employees of large corporations enjoy, and that coverage must be portable as they move between jobs or gigs.
  2. Everyone needs an advocate. Without an HR department or union to rely on, independent workers are often left alone to wrestle with impenatrable health care bureaucracies. Competent, non-profit intermediaries can play a powerful role as patient advocates.
  3. Universal health care depends on affordable health insurance. Coverage mandates are an effective, market-friendly mechanism for decreasing the ranks of the uninsured, but they only work if insurance is subsidized for those who can't afford it.
  4. Insurance should return to its roots. You don't expect your car insurance to pay for an oil change. New tools like health savings accounts should be promoted as effective ways to reduce the overall cost of health care while strengthening the bond between doctor and patient.
  5. We must move beyond partisan politics. There are good ideas on both sides of the aisle. Going to the mattresses over party-line divides won't solve our health care crisis. Working together as open-minded citizens just might.