As musicians ourselves, we know the lack of health insurance is a big problem,
but before we start talking to insurance companies and legislators we need
some hard numbers. From March 15 - June 30, 2002 the Future of Music Coalition is conducting an
online survey to better understand musicians' experience with health
insurance coverage. The survey is posted here:

http://www.futureofmusic.org/research/healthsurvey.cfm

Please take a couple of minutes and fill it out, whether you have insurance
or not.

We're also hoping you can help us spread the word about the survey's
existence to your network of musician friends by sending out a little email
to your rocker friends/labelmates, posting a short notice in your
newsletter, or providing a link on your website.

Helpful items:

A link to a button you can add on your site:

http://www.futureofmusic.org/images/hsbutton2.gif

A link to a banner you can add to your site:
http://www.futureofmusic.org/images/hsbanner.gif

A PDF postcard you can attach to an email, or for printing to make copies:
http://www.futureofmusic.org/images/healthinspostcard.pdf


The success of this research project depends on how many musicians complete
the survey, and we're hoping that thousands do so we have a rich data set
that captures the full diversity of musicians and songwriters. We're also
urging survey respondents to forward us any personal stories regarding
health insurance and health care they're willing to share publicly, so that
the data fits within the context of the human experience.

We are simultaneously working on other avenues of outreach, including
posting to news groups, flyering at music events and in record shops,
contacting managers, labels and bands on tour, and running PSAs on college
radio. If you can think of any other organizations or groups that would be
interested in this project, please let us know.

When the survey is complete, the FMC will analyze the data and report the
findings publicly. We hope that this survey can be a catalyst to create a
broader and more results-oriented discussion about workable health insurance
solutions for the music community.

For more information about the Future of Music Coalition, go to http://www.futureofmusic.org.

how do you sing good