Uninsured Artists Barter Service for Healthcare

http://www.brooklynrecord.com/archives/2006/11/uninsured_artis.html#more

awesome story over at Woodhull Medical Ctr

Brooklyn Record wrote:
Megan Donis of BCAT reports, "This Brooklyn hosptial has come up with a unique idea — a barter system that allows artists to exchange patient services for healthcare credits." The program is called Artist Access, and for each hour a participating artist donates to the program — either working with children in the pediatric ward or visiting with detox patients — he or she receives $40 toward fees incurred at the hospital. So far, local artists have logged in over 20,000 hours of service at the hopstial, but Dr. Ed Fishkin hopes to expand the program even further...

"The artists represent a pretty small slice of the entire community," he says. "We're now taking the ideas that we used for Artist Access to other groups in the neighrborhood who haven't had access to healtcare — for example, Mexican immigrants, day laborers. We're looking at the Hasidic community, and we're looking at taxi drivers... we are the public hospital for each of the communities, and that we want to take care of them."

what a cool precedent! hope this sort of thing really takes hold. i love the idea of it carrying over to any group that doesn't have coverage.

I have to agree. I hope to see more of this. Insurance is'nt a viable option for a lot of people. Maybe people can trade guns for heathcare. Why not?