Iam a visual artist who paints portraits of people whose lives illustrate the perils and absurdities of our fragmented health insurance system. As a former small-business owner I paid higher fees each year for less insurance coverage for the same number of employees. I briefly thought about firing my employees and hiring part-time workers to avoid the obligation but I knew that, aside from treating good people badly, that would only perpetuate the problem. I needed to understand the system and its effects on people, so I used my love of painting as a way to tell people’s health care stories. I started asking everybody—strangers in restaurants, parking lots, supermarkets—“Do you mind if I ask you how you get health insurance?” I pursued people with health care stories featured on TV or in newspaper articles. Many people thought I was crazy, but a few who were desperate were grateful somebody listened, although I did not have much to offer except a small modeling fee, a portrait, and their story in my online gallery. I heard dramatic stories: a man living in a rusted trailer he inherited from his mother after he lost his home, a rental property, and his marriage to medical bankruptcy; a woman who married her good friend for his insurance after a cancer diagnosis; an uninsured 23-year-old college graduate who saved money by reducing her insulin dosage, developed flulike symptoms that she ignored, and died of ketoacidosis; and a laid-off electronics repairman with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator who arrested and died needing a new battery for his unit, which he couldn’t afford due to lack of insurance. Our society pays a dear price for making access to health care so difficult. As an artist, what I could offer people willing to talk to me was the ability to paint their portraits and tell their stories. Well before the ACA debate that began in 2009, debates about health care have been quick to use patient anecdotes to advance broad political agendas, and advocates define the political opposition with differing policy solutions as “other.” What if the “others” had stories and faces? In a portrait series called Health Care in the United States—one theme in a broader project I’ve called Art As Social Inquiry through which I explore issues of social equity in the United States— I hope to draw people into each other’s lives and forge a human connection through art. My hope is that the project will help people form more informed opinions and even bring enlightened policy solutions for resolving our nation’s rancorous health care debate.

中文翻译：

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卫生政策中的肖像

我是一位视觉艺术家，他为人们描绘肖像，他们的生活说明了我们支离破碎的医疗保险体系的危险和荒谬。作为一名前小企业主，我每年支付更高的费用，为相同数量的员工提供更少的保险。我曾短暂地考虑过解雇我的员工并雇用兼职员工来逃避义务，但我知道，除了不善待好人之外，这只会使问题长期存在。我需要了解这个系统及其对人的影响，所以我用我对绘画的热爱来讲述人们的医疗保健故事。我开始问每个人——餐馆、停车场、超市里的陌生人——“你介意我问你如何获得健康保险吗？” 我追求那些在电视或报纸文章中报道过医疗保健故事的人。很多人以为我疯了，但是一些绝望的人很感激有人倾听，尽管除了少量的模特费、肖像和他们在我的在线画廊中的故事之外，我没有什么可以提供的。我听到了一些戏剧性的故事：一个男人住在一个​​生锈的拖车里，他失去了他的房子，失去了一套出租财产，他的婚姻因医疗破产而从他母亲那里继承下来；一个女人在癌症诊断后嫁给了她的好朋友以获得他的保险；一位没有保险的 23 岁大学毕业生，她通过减少胰岛素剂量来省钱，但出现了她忽视的流感样症状，并死于酮症酸中毒；一名下岗的电子修理工带着植入式心律转复除颤器被捕并死亡，他的装置需要新电池，由于缺乏保险，他负担不起。我们的社会为使获得医疗保健变得如此困难而付出了沉重的代价。作为一名艺术家，我可以为愿意与我交谈的人提供绘画肖像和讲述他们故事的能力。早在 2009 年开始的 ACA 辩论之前，关于医疗保健的辩论就迅速利用患者轶事来推进广泛的政治议程，倡导者将具有不同政策解决方案的政治反对派定义为“其他”。如果“其他人”有故事和面孔怎么办？在名为“美国医疗保健”的肖像系列中——我称之为“作为社会探究的艺术”的更广泛项目的一个主题，我通过它探索美国的社会公平问题——我希望将人们吸引到彼此的生活中并建立通过艺术建立人际关系。