Texas Music News — August 24, 2026
Austin’s Health Alliance for Austin Musicians helps musicians afford insurance, even as premiums jumped 60 percent this year. Zack Morgan jokes that losing his tech job in 2015 felt like being pushed off a cliff. Health insurance became the rope ladder he needed on the way down. “Maybe this is my sign to try the full-time music thing,” he recalled thinking. So step one, he said, was getting health insurance again.
Austin calls itself the Live Music Capital of the World, but that title doesn’t pay premiums. Then he turned to the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, known as HAAM, which subsidizes marketplace insurance for local musicians. He now plays keyboard with pop singer Ruthie Craft at the Saxon Pub. He gigs across Austin’s club circuit, from South Lamar to the Continental Club. Still, HAAM covers the gap that insurance otherwise leaves in his pocket.
The Math Behind the Melody
Now the math has gotten uglier. Congress let pandemic-era premium tax credits expire, and Sendero Health Plans raised rates 16 percent too. Meanwhile, HAAM’s chief strategy officer, Rachel Blair, watched premiums for members climb 60 percent in twelve months. “There’s no way they could spend a third of their income on healthcare,” Blair said. The average HAAM member earns about $30,000 a year. HAAM works with Central Health, Travis County’s public hospital district, to cover what’s left after federal tax credits kick in.
The subsidy program has grown fast. Since HAAM started covering premiums, membership has climbed 77 percent to more than 3,300 musicians. Over 90 percent now carry insurance. Denton also borrowed the model in 2017. The Denton Music and Arts Collaborative runs a smaller version, protecting its “weird art rock” scene. Even so, HAAM had to turn away hundreds of qualified applicants this year when fundraising couldn’t keep pace. Morgan still gigs around Austin most nights. The coverage finally followed him into the career he actually wanted.
Details at KUT News
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