A New Link To Resources

A career in the creative arts doesn't stand out as likely to provide excellent health-care coverage. That's probably why one of the most comprehensive online resources for people with no insurance, or who need ultra-low-cost medical care, was created by the Actors Fund.

The site is http://www.ahirc.org, which stands for Access to Health Insurance/Resources for Care. It was created 11 years ago, and updated and relaunched last month.

The Actors Fund provides assistance to anyone affiliated with the arts: musicians between gigs, freelance graphic artists, even unemployed movie-set catering assistants. The fund's services include résumé and job skills training, financial assistance, crisis intervention, and health-care and health insurance assistance.

But the Web site is accessible to anyone, artistically inclined or not. It's searchable by state from the home page and includes links to primers on health insurance; tax information for medical expenses; organizations that help with drug costs and insurance co-pays; and medical centers offering free or low-cost services, such as flu shot clinics, routine checkups, screenings for sexually transmitted disease, HIV resources, smoking-cessation assistance, addiction treatment and mental health counseling.

A few of the resources are specific to people in the arts, such as group associations for cartoonists or dancers that may be able to provide less-expensive individual or family health coverage.

-- Francesca Lunzer Kritz