Last fall, Ellen Haun and Dru Johnston were fighting to get their fitness insurance paid for 2023. The Hollywood couple is a member of SAG-AFTRA, the union that represents actors and writers. Members will have to earn approximately $26,000 per year from union projects. to be eligible for union insurance.
And Haun is about $800 short.
When she couldn’t book the gigs she wanted, Haun, along with her husband Johnston, came up with a plan: finance enough money to make her own movie starring Haun, titled “Ellen Needs Insurance. “
In this episode of “An Arm and a Leg,” host Dan Weissmann talks to Haun and Johnston about their short film, how they were affected by the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, and their ongoing quest to insure themselves.
Note: An Arm and a Leg uses speech popularity software to generate transcripts that would possibly involve errors. Use the transcript as a tool, but check the corresponding audio before opening the podcast.
Okay, here’s something I didn’t expect to say: I have a funny, sweet story about fitness insurance. Okay, bitter caramel. It’s here. . .
When we record this, it’s November, which means registration is open to many other people; It’s time to determine next year’s fitness insurance, whether it’s Obamacare scholarships or many jobs. A year ago, Ellen Haun and her husband, Dru Johnston, were fighting to get their fitness insurance for 2023. In the most artistic way possible. . . by crowdfunding an art commission. Of course, they posted a video.
Ellen: Hi, my call is Ellen and I want fitness insurance.
Dru: And my calling is Dru, and I also want fitness insurance.
Dan: Ellen and Dru paint in Hollywood (they act and write) and other people in that industry get their insurance from the unions. But only if they have accumulated enough wages to paint in the union over a 12-month period. They had Ellen’s guarantee through the Screen Actors Guild, SAG. But last fall, as they explained in their crowdfunding video, this union insurance didn’t seem like a bet for next year.
Dru: Right now, he’s $804 short.
Ellen: And this short film is “Ellen Needs Insurance. “
Dan: The video described their plan: to employ not only Ellen but also other actors who also needed a little bit to cross the finish line and qualify.
Dru: And which brings us to the next point: are you an actor about to get your insurance? So, touch us.
Ellen: yes, we need you. We need you to have insurance.
Dru: And if we raise more money than we want, we’ll use all that just
towards the recruitment of actors and their trust.
Ellen: We’ll upload parts. We don’t care.
Dru: yes, it’s not Shakespeare. Es a script we wrote. We’ll upload parts.
Ellen: We can. . . We’ll make them up.
Dan: That was a year ago. And spoiler: they made the movie. Of course, they now want insurance for 2024. And Ellen’s union spent much of 2023 on strike, reducing the chances of getting that insurance again. So, I tried to communicate with them!
[The song “An Arm and a Leg” plays. ]
It’s called “An Arm and a Leg,” a show about why physical care is so important and what we can do about it. My name is Dan Weissmann. I am a journalist and I love challenges.
So, the selected task here is to take one of the most infuriating, scary, and miserable facets of American life and provide them with something entertaining, challenging, and useful.
[End “One Arm and One Leg. “]
Ellen and Dru met at a wedding.
Ellen: I’m friends with the bride and Drew is friends with the groom. And at the bridal shower, Emily had talked about all the bachelors who were going to be at the wedding, but she had forgotten to include Dru on that list. I thought, I thought, why is this guy talking to me so much? She probably has a friend somewhere.
Dru: Turns out not. And then we ended up starting dating almost after that wedding.
Dan: At the time, Ellen was making enough money as an actress to qualify for fitness insurance, starting with an Xfinity Internet ad and a recurring role as a law student on “How to Get Away with Murder. “
Viola Davis: Ms. Chapin, can you tell us what the Fifth Amendment is?
Ellen: The Fifth Amendment? Ah, that’s right.
This guarantees your right to coverage against self-incrimination.
Viola Davis: Are you asking me?
Elena: No, that’s my answer.
Viola Davis: And that’s right.
Dan: Getting this insurance is a vital career step. More than 85 percent of SAG members don’t set aside enough union contracts to qualify; About $26,000 is needed over a one-year period. (And, you know, of course, the maximum (The actors, including Ellen, choose some other additional task, or even paint a daily task. ) For most of the past few years, Ellen hasn’t had the worry of making enough money to qualify for insurance. I paid for an ad that kept spinning because it was great. You probably would have noticed. Even I’ve noticed it. . . And I never watch TV. Ellen plays BOTH roles. She is a call center painter.
Claire in Phoenix: This is Claire in Phoenix, can I?
Dan: And it was a woman who contacted the visitor service.
Ellen as client: Yes.
Claire in Phoenix: Great.
Ellen as a customer: That’s right.
Claire in Phoenix: Ma’am. It’s an automated computer.
Ellen as customer: Operator?
Claire in Phoenix: Ma’am? I’m here. I’m live.
Ellen as a customer: Wait, are you real?
Claire in Phoenix: Yes! With Discover Card, you can communicate with a genuine person.
Dan: Ellen gets a “retainer fee” to keep you from having to audition for contestant announcements.
Ellen: And I knew in the back of my brain that, well, withholding payment goes away because this ad goes off the air.
Dan: And then, last June, they gave him the call.
Ellen: My agent said, ‘Hey, they’re releasing you from holds. ‘Um, you won’t get that payment. You. . . You’re free to audition for other commercials.
And I like it, okay, but what about this fitness insurance?
Dan: It was June. He needed to earn another $6,000, through the end of December, for his insurance.
Ellen: And I like it, okay, I’m halfway through the year. Like it’s just a booking like any other listing.
Dan: But it wasn’t a sure thing. He had been doing it for years, but he kept insisting on his bets. He experimented with running as an extra.
Ellen: And I get pretty consistent paints, but also the background paints don’t pay very well.
Dan: $187 per day. Not anymore if there’s overtime, but still. Not that it’s not much, especially if you’re looking to reduce your balance to $6,000.
I was like, I don’t know if I’m going to do this, um, I knew it was definitely going to happen. That’s when I thought, you know what, maybe we’ll think about making a movie about it.
Dan: Actually, it was an idea that had been on Dru’s shelves for many years. As a comedy for a television show, Dru had received his insurance from the syndicate’s WGA. And then, in 2018, the show was canceled. Luckily for Drew, he was married to Ellen at the time, so they put him under their SAG insurance. And then, after that saga ended, it had a fun concept.
Dru: I thought, oh, you know, what I did was I created an internet series called “Dru Needs Insurance. “And then I thought, well, it’s too late. I guess that’s a concept you’ll never have to do. And then it moves quickly.
Dan: They’re on the boat again.
Except now it’s Ellen who’s small and there’s nothing to lean on. I asked them if they remembered the day they decided to make the film. Dru said:. . .
Dru: It’s in the obstetrics and gynecology office.
Dan: yes, they were pregnant! It’s the first stop to go to the doctor.
Dru: We went to the ultrasound. We saw the baby. We hear the heartbeat. We like having the baby. Happens.
Dan: Now they would go to the doctor and let him know the next steps.
Dru: And we spend about 20 minutes in that waiting room, sitting there, thinking, okay, our lives are going to change.
Do we have to make decisions or do we have to decide which piece we are going to use?But in the midst of all this, we thought, “Oh, our fitness insurance is going to. . . “it’s about to run out.
Dan: Actually, it will sell out precisely one month before your due date.
Dru: And I like, well, we want this fitness insurance. Um, and that’s when Ellen said, I think I want to make a movie and we want to do it.
Dan: That’s what they did! They wrote a script and hired support from a friend’s production company (the union doesn’t allow you to pay yourself directly). Which brings us to the point in the story where they made this crowdfunding video.
[Sounds optimistic in the background. ]
Dru: It’s a comedy about an actress named Ellen and what she does to get insurance.
Ellen: Things like begging my agent for a job, praying to the gods to give me a wonderful residual check, and even background work.
Furthermore, the film shows how complicated it is to manage insurance in this country.
[Ends optimistic.
Dan: How did it go? That’s the sequel.
This episode of “An Arm and a Leg” is produced in partnership with KFF Health News. It is a non-profit newsroom that covers healthcare in America. Their journalism is wonderful: they win all kinds of awards every year, and I’m revered for painting with them.
Dan: So Ellen and Dru raised the money: over $33,000. In fact, they have exceeded their goal. The film is delightfully meta. It starts with Ellen, the character, in her kitchen talking to her friend. . .
Best Friend: Why can’t you just pay the difference?
Ellen: Oh yes, I tried. But I and they told me it wasn’t allowed.
Best friend: I think the whole challenge with fitness insurance in this country is paying for it.
Ellen: Apparently, not when you want it to. If I want to keep my fitness insurance, I want to book the SAG project through the end of the year.
Best friend: Couldn’t get into something?
Ellen: What, my own movie? I mean, I’d have to finance,
writing a script, a production team, using a payroll company, etc.
Dan: So, just like the real Ellen did, Movie-Ellen makes the decision to do everything they can to book another commercial. And if you ever think it might be fun to watch an acting career, the audition scene. . . with Ellen and a casting director, it might put you off.
Casting Director: All right, we’re going to take action and, um, remember, that determines whether or not you’re going to see a doctor next year.
Dan: Soon we’ll see Ellen search for COBRA, which you possibly would have searched for yourself, as if you’ve already abandoned a task without your next task and your next insurance being aligned.
COBRA Launch: Are You Your Fitness Insurance?
Do not worry. It happens all the time. Cobra is here for you. . . .
Dan: And if you’ve seen it, you’ll know: COBRA is EXPENSIVE. For example, the average employer policy for a family costs more than $20,000 per year. So that’s the diversity of COBRA pricing.
COBRA Location: The fact that it’s named after a venomous and deadly snake is only part of the laugh and has nothing to do with it like death. You’ve made less money and now you have to pay more.
Dan: On the recommendation of her agent, Ellen tries her hand at background work, another case art that mimics life. And, in a scene that highlights some of the quirks of how it all works, she’s interrogating her friend over a drink. in a bar.
Best Friend: How are you doing?
Ellen: It’s as bad as I thought, but it doesn’t pay very well. You get a
A lot if you have a line.
Dan: And suddenly, the bar patron leans into the conversation. . . Bar Owner: Excuse me, did you say you’d make more money if you had a line?
Elena: Yes.
Bar patron: Got it.
Dan: And customer. Bar Owner: Just one line?
Elena: Yes.
You also get more if you have more than lines.
Bar Owner: Wow. Wow.
Dan: Now it’s all at the bar.
Bar patrons: Wow. Ouah. Ouah. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.
Dan: The factor of salary increases is, of course, real. Including hitting more than five lines. And just to expand on this for a minute, Dru experienced the downsides of this rule, in ridiculous and painful ways, when he made a one-off appearance in Orange Is the New Black. It was a big, meaty scene, but it was no more than five lines.
Dru: I’m a lawyer and every line is part of a page of legalese.
Dru as Attorney: Based on extensive testimony, the U. S. Attorney charged you and 4 others.
[LOW DUCKS: with incitement to Array They allege that you created and maintained a secret bunker, and there is also evidence directly implicating you in the kidnapping and false imprisonment of Officer Desmond Piscatella. . . ]
Dan: But here’s how you explain a “line” in this situation: As long as no one interrupts you, a monologue is just a line. A paper with five lines or less is called “less than five. “
Dru: And I like it, is it a child under the age of five?I like it, okay, well, here we go. I’m just going to do a two-page lecture.
Dru as Attorney: I negotiated a plea deal for you. If the charges opposing the riots are admitted, they are in a position to abandon everything else. It’s very good.
Dan: We haven’t gotten to the end of Dru’s first sentence in this scene yet. Dru as a lawyer: This will give you the shortest sentence possible.
Dru as a lawyer: Do you understand?
Dan: Back in the movie, Ellen’s character freaks out when she shows up at a doctor’s appointment.
Dr. Receptionist: Has it changed?
Ellen: No, but it may be soon, so I tried to make sure you all accepted it.
Dr. Receptionist: Well, we take maximum insurance, so I’m sure we’ll be fine.
Elena: Great. Um, I’m looking at the California Insurance Exchange. Dr. Receptionist: Hmm, no.
Elena: Excuse me?
Dr. Receptionist: No, we don’t settle for that.
Dan: And in the doctor’s office, in some other echo of Ellen and Dru’s story, Ellen, the character, is having an ultrasound.
Elena: Congratulations.
Dan: And she goes back to the first scene, with her friend. . .
Best Friend: Couldn’t you get into something?
Ellen: Like what? (echoes) My film?
Dan: And, of course, that’s where she decides. She’s going to do that. On his way out, he told the receptionist. . .
Ellen: My confidence is going to change. You can count on it.
Dr. Receptionist: Uh, okay.
Dan: When I saw the movie, I didn’t know that Ellen Haun was pregnant at the time of filming.
Dru: We’ve never talked about it in the context of crowdfunding. But then, when we made the film, we thought: let’s use genuine life. Not only was it genuine, but it seemed like the easiest way to achieve it.
Dan: They shot the movie for 3 days in December 2022. Making this movie with $33,000 and replacing a feat in itself. They paid 15 actors and a crew. There is a plot to rent and equipment. . .
Ellen: You have to pay for food to feed your cast and crew. And most importantly, you know, they’re all falling a little bit short of their salary, so you have to buy them food.
Dan: You’ve heard some of the results. It probably wouldn’t spoil the rest. They are thirteen very fun minutes. We’ll have a link anywhere you pay attention to this. With the film completed until New Year’s Eve, Ellen was eligible for her insurance, so she was present when her baby Bruce was born a few weeks earlier.
Ellen: We spent 3 weeks in the NICU and for the whole time we were in the hospital with him, we kept saying, ‘I’m so pleased to have insurance. ‘I am so pleased to have insurance. I’m so we have insurance.
Dan: Just a few weeks after Bruce’s birth, Dru’s union, the Writers Guild, went on strike. Then Ellen’s union went on strike as well.
Ellen: We took Bruce to his first picket line when he was about two months old. And once a week, I’ll picket with him. That’s how everyone knows him in the
Disney Picket. He’s a little unionist baby.
Dru: We’re kidding, it went straight from hard work to hard work action.
Dan: But it’s not a joke: the SAG strike meant less work for actors in 2023, fewer opportunities to make money, and qualify for insurance. The fitness plan extended a grace period to prevent other people from being excluded, and a new law in California allows striking workers to get subsidized insurance through the state’s Obamacare scholarship. In the meantime, Ellen managed to electronically book some other advertisement (only TV shows and videos were the target of the strike, not classified ads) so that her family circle would be in a safe place. position for next year as well.
It’s a satisfied ending. . . For now.
But that sounds like an exhausting journey for the rest of your life. I asked Ellen and Dru what they thought.
Ellen: The wonderful thing about the strike is talking to an organization of friends about how hard it has been in the last few years to make a living doing this.
I was in my twenties when I first signed up for SAG fitness insurance. I was like, “Great. ” Like “this is it. “
Dan: That was almost ten years ago. But somehow, getting consistent paints has become more complicated over time. And it felt personal.
Ellen: It was like, emotionally, there was something wrong with me and I wasn’t making as much money as I had earlier in my career. And so, honestly, it’s been a big component of the strike to realize that. Hey, this happens to all of us. It doesn’t just happen to me. It’s hard.
Dan: But it’s not just hard for actors and writers.
Dru: My brother works in technology. GOOD. And I think the nature of employment has been replaced in many sectors. And like, there is no longer the same security in tasks as when my parents arrived.
Dan: Dru remembers the moment, years ago, when he gave up his day job to write and write full-time. At first, he lands and starts. Week after week, he can seem precarious.
Dru: I’ve had a rough week and I think maybe it’s time to get a genuine job like my brother. And that week, they fired him. They gave him another task, he figured it out, but that’s when I thought, oh, there’s no task you can do and do, now I have fitness insurance. So that’s a long answer to say, I don’t think so. We will be leaving the entertainment industry soon.
Ellen: yes, we put all our chips on the table.
Dan: And as Dru said: In those days, fewer of us have a task where we don’t have to worry about where our fitness insurance is coming from or if it’s going to be useful. I mean, if there were more of us with that kind of security, I literally wouldn’t have done this program. There would be no explanation as to why he would do so. But of course, after five years, I don’t expect to run out of material.
As we publish this episode, we’ve also just published part of our first aid kit newsletter, which summarizes and updates all of our most sensible tips on how to get the least unpleasant fitness insurance for you.
I’ve learned a lot in five years. And we can concentrate what we’ve learned because of your support. And if you can, now is the most productive time to get involved, because right now, every dollar you donate, up to a thousand dollars consistently counts. !- Be matched. Thanks to NewsMatch from the Institute for Nonprofit News, every dollar you give us counts double. The position to pass is the show of arms and legs, dot com, bar stand. It’s https://armandalegshow. com/support/.
We’ll be back in 3 weeks with the first component of a great research we’ve been doing. . . almost all year round. Talk about learning a lot. It’s been a wild ride. We had to do this – and we’ll share the percentage of the effects with you – thank you for your support and I’m so grateful. I leave you this front once again: arm and leg dot com display, bar, support. THANK YOU! I’ll see you in 3 weeks. Until then, take care of yourself.
This episode of “An Arm and a Leg” was produced by Emily Pisacreta and myself, Dan Weissman, and edited by Ellen Weiss.
Daisy Rosario is our Consulting Producer, Director.
Adam Raymonda is our audio assistant.
Our music is through Dave Winer and Blue Dot Sessions.
Gabrielle Healy is our Audience Editor and publishes the First Aid Kits newsletter.
Bea Bosco is our Operations Advisory Director.
Sarah Ballema is our operations manager.
“An Arm and a Leg” is produced in partnership with KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News. It’s a national newsroom that generates in-depth journalism on fitness care in America and a core program for KFF, an independent source of fitness policy. research, surveys, and journalism. You can learn more about KFF Health News at: https://armandalegshow. com/about-x/partners-and-supporters/kaiserfitnessnews/
Zach Dyer is a senior audio producer at KFF Health News and is the editorial liaison for this program.
Many thanks to the Institute for Nonprofit News for serving as a fiscal sponsor, allowing us to accept tax-exempt donations. You can learn more about INN at INN. org
And now, one of my favorite parts of the concert. . . I would like to thank some of the other people who have joined this exhibition over the past few weeks. Thanks right now to our colleagues (Dan lists the donors. ) Thank you very much!
“An Arm and a Leg” is a co-production between KFF Health News and Public Road Productions.
To get in touch with “One Arm and One Leg”, subscribe to the newsletter. You can also follow the screen on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter. And if you have stories to tell about the fitness care system, the manufacturers love to hear from you.
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Last fall, Ellen Haun and Dru Johnston were fighting to get their fitness insurance paid for 2023. The Hollywood couple is a member of SAG-AFTRA, the union that represents actors and writers. Members will have to earn approximately $26,000 per year from union projects. to be eligible for union insurance.
And Haun is about $800 short.
When she couldn’t book the gigs she wanted, Haun, along with her husband Johnston, came up with a plan: fund enough money to make her own movie starring Haun, titled “Ellen Needs Insurance. “
In this episode of “An Arm and a Leg,” host Dan Weissmann talks to Haun and Johnston about their short film, how they were affected by the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, and their ongoing quest to insure themselves.
Note: “An Arm and a Leg” uses speech popularity software to generate transcripts that would possibly involve errors. Use the transcript as a tool, but check the corresponding audio before quoting the podcast.
Okay, here’s something I didn’t expect to say: I have a funny, sweet story about fitness insurance. Okay, bittersweet. That’s all. . .
When we record this, it’s November, which means registration is open to many other people; It’s time to determine next year’s fitness insurance, whether it’s Obamacare scholarships or many jobs. A year ago, Ellen Haun and her husband, Dru Johnston, were fighting to get their fitness insurance for 2023. In the most artistic way possible. . . through investing in an art project. Of course, they posted a video.
Ellen: Hi, my call is Ellen and I want fitness insurance.
Dru: And my calling is Dru, and I also want fitness insurance.
Dan: Ellen and Dru paint in Hollywood (act and write) and other people in that industry get their insurance from unions. But only if they have accumulated enough wages to paint in the union for a 12-month period. They had Ellen’s guarantee through the Screen Actors Guild, SAG. But last fall, as they explained in their crowdfunding video, this union insurance did not seem like a bet for next year.
Dru: Right now, he’s $804 short.
Ellen: And this short film is “Ellen Needs Insurance. “
Dan: The video described their plan: to employ not only Ellen but also other actors who also needed a little bit to cross the finish line and qualify.
Dru: And which brings us to the next point: are you an actor and you’re about to buy fitness insurance?So please touch us.
Ellen: Yes, we need you. We need you to have insurance.
Dru: And if we raise more money than we want, we’ll use all of that just
towards the recruitment of actors and their trust.
Ellen: We’ll upload parts. We do not care.
Dru: yes, it’s not Shakespeare. Es a script we wrote. We’ll upload parts.
Ellen: We can. . . We’ll invent them.
Dan: It was a year ago. And spoiler: they made the movie. Of course, now they want insurance for 2024. And Ellen’s union spent much of 2023 on strike, reducing the chances of getting that insurance again. So… I sought to communicate with them!
[The song “An Arm and a Leg” plays. ]
It’s called “One Arm and One Leg,” a program about why physical care is so important and what we can do about it. My calling is Dan Weissmann. I’m a journalist and I love a challenge.
So, the selected task here is to take one of the most infuriating, scary, and miserable facets of American life and provide them with something entertaining, challenging, and useful.
[End “One Arm and One Leg. “]
Ellen and Dru met at a wedding.
Ellen: I’m friends with the bride and Drew is friends with the groom. And at the bridal shower, Emily had talked about all the bachelorettes who were going to be at the wedding, but she forgot to include Dru on that list. So I said to myself, I said to myself, why is this guy talking to me so much?She probably has a friend somewhere.
And then we ended up dating almost after that wedding.
Dan: At the time, Ellen was making enough money as an actress to qualify for fitness insurance, starting with an Xfinity Internet ad and a recurring role as a law student on “How to Get Away with Murder. “
Viola Davis: Ms. Chapin, can you tell us what the Fifth Amendment is?
Ellen: The Fifth Amendment? Ah, that’s right.
This guarantees your right to coverage against self-incrimination.
Viola Davis: Are you asking?
Elena: No, that’s my answer.
Viola Davis: And that’s right.
Dan: Getting this insurance is a vital career step. More than 85 percent of SAG members don’t set aside enough union contracts to qualify; About $26,000 is needed over a one-year period. (And, you know, of course, the maximum (The actors, including Ellen, choose some other additional task, or even paint a daily task. ) For most of the past few years, Ellen hasn’t had the worry of making enough money to qualify for insurance. I paid for an ad that kept spinning because it was great. You probably would have noticed. Even I’ve noticed it. . . And I never watch TV. Ellen plays BOTH roles. She is a call center painter.
Claire in Phoenix: This is Claire in Phoenix, can I?
Dan: And it was a woman who contacted the visitor service.
Ellen as a customer: Yes.
Claire in Phoenix: Awesome.
Ellen as client: That’s right.
Claire in Phoenix: Ma’am. It is an automated computer.
Ellen as a customer: Operator?
Claire in Phoenix: Ma’am? I am here. I’m live.
Ellen as a customer: Wait, are you real?
Claire in Phoenix: Yes! With Discover Card, you can communicate with a genuine person.
Dan: Ellen gets a “retainer fee” to keep you from having to audition for contestant announcements.
Ellen: And I knew in the back of my brain that, well, withholding payment goes away because this ad goes off the air.
Dan: And then, last June, they gave him the call.
Ellen: My agent said, ‘Hey, they’re releasing you from holds. ‘Um, you won’t get that payment. You. . . You’re free to audition for other commercials.
And I like it, okay, but what about this fitness insurance?
Dan: That was in June. He needed to earn another $6,000 through the end of December for his insurance.
Ellen: And I like it, okay, they gave me part of the year. Like it’s just a booking like any other listing.
Dan: But it wasn’t a sure thing. He had been doing it for years, but he kept insisting on his bets. He experimented with running as an extra.
Ellen: And I get pretty consistent paints, but also the background paints don’t pay very well.
Dan: $187 per day. Not if there are overtime anymore, but still. Not that it isn’t a lot, especially if you’re looking to reduce your balance to $6,000.
I was like, I don’t know if I’m going to do this, um, I knew it was definitely going to happen. That’s when I thought, you know what, maybe we’ll think about making a movie about it.
Dan: Actually, it was a concept that had been on Dru’s shelves for a few years. As a comedy for a television show, Dru had received his insurance through the syndicate’s union, the WGA. And then, in 2018, the exhibition was canceled. Luckily for Drew, he was married to Ellen at the time, so they included him in their SAG insurance. And then, after this saga ended, he had a fun concept.
Dru: I thought, oh, you know, what I did is an internet series called “Dru Needs Insurance. “And then I thought, well, it’s too late. I guess that’s a concept I’ll never have to do. And then it moves quickly.
Dan: They’re on the boat again.
Except now it’s Ellen who’s little and there’s nothing to lean on. I asked them if they remembered the day they decided to make the film. Dru said:. . .
Dru: It was in the OBGYN’s office.
Dan: yes, they were pregnant! It’s the first stop to go to the doctor.
Dru: We went to the ultrasound. We saw the baby. We hear the heartbeat. We like having the baby. Happens.
Dan: Now they would go to the doctor and let him know the next steps.
Dru: And we spend about 20 minutes in that waiting room, sitting there, thinking, okay, our life is going to change.
Do we have to make decisions or do we have to decide which piece we are going to use?But in the midst of all this, we thought, “Oh, our fitness insurance is going to. . . “it’s about to run out.
Dan: Actually, it will sell out precisely one month before your due date.
Dru: And I like, well, we want this fitness insurance. Um, and that’s when Ellen said, I think I want to make a movie and we want to do it.
Dan: That’s what they did! They wrote a script and enlisted the support of a friend’s production company (the union doesn’t allow one to be paid directly). Which brings us to the point in history where they made this crowdfunding video.
[Sounds optimistic in the background. ]
Dru: It’s a comedy about an actress named Ellen and what she does to get insurance.
Ellen: Things like begging my agent for a job, praying to the gods to give me a wonderful residual check, and even some previous work.
In addition, the film shows how complicated it is to manage insurance in this country.
[The music ends.
Dan: How did it go? This is the sequel.
This episode of “An Arm and a Leg” is produced in partnership with KFF Health News. It is a non-profit newsroom that covers healthcare in America. Their journalism is wonderful: they win all kinds of awards every year, and I’m revered for painting with them.
Dan: So Ellen and Dru raised the money: over $33,000. In fact, they have exceeded their goal. The film is delightfully meta. It starts with Ellen, her character, in her kitchen talking to her friend. . .
Best Friend: Why can’t you just pay the difference?
Ellen: Oh yeah, I tried. But me and they told me that it was not allowed.
Best friend: I think the whole challenge with fitness insurance in this country is paying for it.
Ellen: Apparently, not when you want it to. If I want to keep my fitness insurance, I want to book the SAG project through the end of the year.
Best Friend: Couldn’t you get into something?
Ellen: In what, my own movie? Ouais. I mean, I would have to finance,
writing a script, a production team, a payroll company,. . .
Dan: So, just like the real Ellen did, Movie-Ellen makes the decision to do everything they can to book another commercial. And if you ever think it might be fun to watch an acting career, the audition scene. . . with Ellen and a casting director, it might put you off.
Casting Director: All right, we’re going to take action and, um, remember, that determines whether or not you’re going to see a doctor next year.
Dan: We’ll soon see Ellen search for COBRA, which you probably would have searched for yourself, as if you had already abandoned a task without your next task and your next insurance being aligned.
COBRA Launch: Are You Your Fitness Insurance?
Do not worry. It happens all the time. Cobra is here for you. . . .
Dan: And if you’ve seen it, you’ll know: COBRA is EXPENSIVE. For example, the average employer policy for a family costs more than $20,000 per year. So that’s the price diversity of COBRA.
COBRA Location: The fact that it’s named after a venomous and deadly snake is just one component of laughter and has nothing to do with the fact that it looks like death. You made less money and now you have to pay more.
Dan: On the recommendation of her agent, Ellen tries her hand at background work, another case art that mimics life. And, in a scene that highlights some of the quirks of how it all works, she’s interrogating her friend over a drink. in a bar.
Best Friend: How are you doing?
Ellen: It’s not as bad as I imagined, but it’s not very well paid. You get a
a lot if you have a line.
Dan: And all of a sudden, the bar patron gets involved in the conversation. . . Bar Owner: Excuse me, did you say you made more money if you had a queue?
Elena: Yes.
Bar Owner: Got it.
Dan: And customer. Bar Owner: Just one line?
Elena: Yes.
You also get more if you have more than lines.
Bar Owner: Wow. Wow.
Dan: Now it’s all at the bar.
Bar patrons: Wow. Ouah. Ouah. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.
Dan: The wage increase factor is, of course, real. Including the increase of more than five lines. And just to expand on this for a minute, Dru experienced the downsides of this rule, ridiculously and painfully, when he made a one-off appearance in Orange Is the New Black. It was a big, meaty scene, but it didn’t. exceed five lines.
Dru: I’m a lawyer and every line is part of a page of legalese.
Dru as Attorney: Based on extensive testimony, the federal prosecutor charged you and 4 people.
[LOW DUCKS: with incitement to Array They allege that you created and maintained a secret bunker, and there is also evidence directly implicating you in the kidnapping and false imprisonment of Officer Desmond Piscatella. . . ]
Dan: But here’s how you explain a “line” in this situation: as long as no one interrupts you, a monologue is just a line. A piece of paper with five lines or less is called “less than five. “
Dru: And I like it, is it a child under the age of five?I like, well, here we go. I’m just going to give a two-page lecture.
Dru as Attorney: I negotiated a plea deal for you. If the charges against the riots are admitted, they are in a position to abandon everything else. Is very good.
Dan: We haven’t gotten to the end of Dru’s first sentence in this scene yet. Dru as Lawyer: This will give you the shortest possible sentence.
Dru as a lawyer: Do you understand?
Dan: Back in the movie, Ellen’s character freaks out when she shows up at a doctor’s appointment.
Dr. Receptionist: Has it changed?
Ellen: No, but it’s going to happen soon, so I tried to make sure you all accepted it.
Dr. Receptionist: Well, we take maximum insurance, so I’m sure we’ll be fine.
Ellen: Great. Uh, I’m looking at the California Insurance Exchange. Dr. Receptionist: Oh, no.
Elena: Excuse me?
Dr. Receptionist: No, we don’t settle for that.
Dan: And in the doctor’s office, in some other echo of Ellen and Dru’s story, Ellen, the character, gets an ultrasound.
Elena: Congratulations.
Dan: And she goes back to the first scene, with her friend. . .
Best friend: Couldn’t get into something?
Ellen: Like what? (echoes) My film?
Dan: And, of course, that’s where she decides. She’s going to do that. On his way out, he told the receptionist. . .
Ellen: My confidence is going to change. You can count on it.
Dr. Receptionist: Um, okay.
Dan: When I saw the movie, I didn’t know that Ellen Haun was pregnant at the time of filming.
Dru: We have never talked about it in the context of crowdfunding. But then when we made the movie, we thought, let’s use genuine life. Not only was it genuine, but it seemed like the easiest way to do it.
Dan: They shot the movie for 3 days in December 2022. Making this movie with $33,000 and replacing a feat in itself. They paid 15 actors and a crew. There is a plot to rent and equipment. . .
Ellen: You have to pay for food to feed your cast and crew. And most importantly, you know, they’re all falling a little bit short of their salary, so you have to buy them food.
Dan: You’ve heard some of the results. I’m not going to spoil the rest. It’s thirteen minutes of a lot of fun. We’ll have a link anywhere you pay attention to this. With the movie finished by New Year’s Eve, Ellen is eligible for her insurance, so she was there when her baby Bruce was born a few weeks early.
Ellen: We spent 3 weeks in the NICU and for the whole time we were in the hospital with him, we kept saying, ‘I’m so pleased to have insurance. ‘I am so pleased to have insurance. I’m so we have insurance.
Dan: Just a few weeks after Bruce’s birth, Dru’s union, the Writers Guild, went on strike. Then Ellen’s union went on strike as well.
Ellen: We took Bruce to his first picket line when he was about two months old. And once a week, I’ll picket with him. That’s how everyone knows him in the
Disney Picket. He’s a little unionist baby.
Dru: We’re kidding, it went straight from hard work to union action.
Dan: But it’s not a joke: the SAG strike meant less work for actors in 2023, fewer opportunities to make money, and qualify for insurance. The fitness plan extended a grace period to prevent other people from being excluded, and a new law in California allows striking workers to get subsidized insurance through the state’s Obamacare scholarship. In the meantime, Ellen managed to electronically book some other advertisement (only TV shows and videos were the target of the strike, not classified ads) so that her family circle would be in a safe place. position for next year as well.
It’s a satisfied ending. . . For now.
But that sounds like an exhausting journey for the rest of your life. I asked Ellen and Dru what they thought.
Ellen: The best thing about the strike is talking to an organization of friends about how difficult it has been in recent years to make a living doing this.
I was in my twenties when I first signed up for SAG fitness insurance. I was like, “Great. ” Like “this is it. “
Dan: That was almost ten years ago. But somehow, getting consistent paints has become more complicated over time. And it felt personal.
Ellen: It was like, emotionally, there was something wrong with me and I wasn’t making as much money as I had made earlier in my career. And so, honestly, it’s been an appealing component of the strike to realize that, Hey, this happens to all of us. It doesn’t just happen to me. It’s hard.
Dan: But it’s not just hard for actors and writers.
Dru: My brother works in technology. I think the nature of employment has replaced it in many industries. And there’s not the same job security that there was when my parents arrived.
Dan: Dru remembers the moment, years ago, when he quit his daily chore to write and devote himself full-time. At first, it lands and begins. Week after week, it can seem precarious.
Dru: I’ve had a tough week and I think maybe it’s time to get a genuine job like my brother’s. And that week, he was fired. He was assigned another task, he figured it out, but that’s when I thought, oh, there’s no task you can perform and perform, I now have fitness insurance. So that’s a long answer to say, I don’t think. We will be leaving the entertainment industry soon.
Ellen: yes, we put all our chips on the table.
Dan: And as Dru said: In those days, fewer of us have a task where we don’t have to worry about where our fitness insurance is coming from or if it’s going to be useful. I mean, if there were more of us with that kind of security, I literally wouldn’t have done this program. There would be no explanation as to why he would do so. But of course, after five years, I don’t expect to run out of material.
While we’re publishing this episode, we’ve also just published a portion of our First Aid Kit newsletter, which summarizes and updates all of our most sensible tips on how to get the least nasty fitness insurance for you.
I’ve learned a lot in five years. And we can concentrate what we’ve learned because of your support. And if you can, now is the most productive time to get involved, because right now, every dollar you donate, up to a thousand dollars consistently counts. !- Be matched. Thanks to NewsMatch from the Institute for Nonprofit News, every dollar we get doubles. The position to pass is the show of arms and legs, dot com, bar stand. It’s https://armandalegshow. com/support/.
We’ll be back in 3 weeks with the first component of a big survey we’ve been conducting. . . almost all year round. Talk about learning a lot. It’s been a wild ride. We were going to do that, and we’ll share the percentage of the effects with you, thank you for your support and I’m very grateful. I’ll leave you again with this direction: display of arms and legs. dot com, slash, support. Thank you! I’ll see you in 3 weeks. Until then, take care of yourself.
This episode of “An Arm and a Leg” was produced by Emily Pisacreta and myself, Dan Weissman and edited by Ellen Weiss.
Daisy Rosario is our Consulting Producer, Director.
Adam Raymonda is our audio assistant.
Our music is through Dave Winer and Blue Dot Sessions.
Gabrielle Healy is our Audience Editor and publishes the First Aid Kits newsletter.
Bea Bosco is our Consulting Director of Operations.
Sarah Ballema is our Operations Manager.
“An Arm and a Leg” is produced in partnership with KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News. It’s a national newsroom that generates in-depth journalism on fitness care in America and a core program of KFF, an independent source of research, polls, and journalism on fitness policy. You can learn more about KFF Health News at: https://armandalegshow. com/about-x/partners-and-supporters/kaiserfitnessnews/
Zach Dyer is a senior audio producer at KFF Health News and is the editorial liaison for this program.
Many thanks to the Institute for Nonprofit News for serving as a fiscal sponsor, allowing us to accept tax-exempt donations. More information about INN can be found at INN. org
And now, one of my favorite parts of the concert. . . I’d like to thank some of the other people who have joined this exhibit over the past few weeks. Thank you right now to our colleagues (Dan lists donors. ) Thank you so much!
“An Arm and a Leg” is a co-production between KFF Health News and Public Road Productions.
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