Heather Matarazzo in danger of losing SAG insurance
SAG-AFTRA health insurance requires minimum earnings for actors to stay on the policy, but amid Hollywood contraction, tech overrun, and pivots to AI, work has been hard to come by.
The stars of cult classics, new and old, are finding it harder and harder to stay on SAG-AFTRA’s health insurance policy, which requires minimum earnings for artists to keep coverage. The problem is, if you aren’t cast regularly, those minimum earnings are hard to reach, even if you’re a well-known performer from popular films. The issue hit the mainstream last week, when Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma star Jack Haven posted a video entitled “Are You Casting?” on YouTube.
“I’m making this video today because I’m in a bit of an emergency situation,” Haven says in the video. “I need to make $4,000 by the end of the month in order to qualify for SAG for SAG health insurance starting in January[…]If you or anyone you know can hire me on a SAG production and pay me $4,000, I will do pretty much any job. I can sing. I can dance. I can talk softly, loudly. I can do accents.”
On Threads, Welcome To The Dollhouse star Heather Matarazzo responded to Haven’s video. “I am literally in the same boat right now. Lots of my fellow actors are. I remember a time when we didn’t have to earn a minimum to qualify for insurance. Glad to see that Jack has gotten an offer that will let them qualify for 2027.” SAG’s health plan requires members to earn $28,933 a year to qualify for insurance, a minimum expected to rise by approximately $900 every year until 2030, per Variety.
This sad and unfair reality is perhaps unsurprising in the United States, the richest country on Earth, which prefers its people to suffer expensive and confusing health care plans rather than joining the rest of the modern world with universal healthcare. As Hollywood continues to contract via media mergers that will inevitably lead to more layoffs and pivots to lousy, job-stealing technologies that are boiling the planet, there is little end in sight for stories like this one.
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