Cautionary tales of the need for health insurance for US musicians

I shuddered in disgust when I read this article.

How can it be right that the most powerful nation on earth can have such a screwed healthcare system that it lets people die because they couldn't afford to look after themselves?

I can't enter that debate, but I do know that the cost of health insurance for many struggling musicians will forever be beyond their means.

Josh Homme has a pertinent piece of advice for any musician hoping for help from the American medical system. "If you want to live," says the leader of Queens of the Stone Age, "you better be rich."

Two years ago, Homme's Queens bandmate Natasha Shneider died from cancer, aged just 52. She was put on chemotherapy pills – two a day at $500 a time. Schneider had health insurance that split the cost, but that still left her paying $500 a day for essential treatment. Now Brian O'Connor, the bassist in one of Homme's other bands, Eagles of Death Metal, has been diagnosed with stage-four colon and lung cancer as well as tumours on his bones.

Read this article in the Guardian - be prepared to be upset and shocked.

Then, if you're a US musician, go and get some health insurance.