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Big Think Interview With Scott Adkins

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A conversation with the playwright and founder of the Brooklyn Writers Space.

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Scott Adkins:

Scott Adkins is the co-founder of the Brooklyn Writers Space, Room 58 and Sock Monkey Press. The Brooklyn Writers Space is a shared writing space for writers in Brooklyn. It opened in 2003 and has served over 600 writers in Brooklyn. Room 58 opened May 2007 and is designed for journalists. Sock Monkey Press publishes The Reader, an anthology grown from the Brooklyn Writers Space Reading Series. He hosts the monthly Brooklyn Writers Space Reading Series at Book Court. He is a writer with an MFA in Playwriting from Brooklyn College. His work has appeared in many venues in the New York downtown theater scene. From 1996 – 2002 he worked for Scudder Stevens, and Clark which became Zurich Investments and finally became Deutsche Bank. He started as a temp and then became the E-Business Manager (VP) from 1999-2002 for the Scudder Offshore Funds and Threadneedle Investments (UK).

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TRANSCRIPT:

Scott Adkins: Scott Adkins. I suppose I run the Brooklyn Writers Space.

Question: What are your views on healthcare for freelance writers?

Scott Adkins: I have huge issues with health insurance. I don’t actually believe in it. I think we should abolish it completely. It’s actually a form of nationalized health care that doesn’t work because it’s only available to a few, and not to everybody. And it seems like we already have mechanisms in place like Medicare and Medicaid to take care of catastrophic situations. So if you can divert health insurance money into a larger pool to handle catastrophic situations then you don’t need health insurance. What that would do to the overall economy, I don’t know, and I’m sure there are plenty of economists who would disagree with getting rid of health insurance because of the jobs that it creates.

But personally I just feel that a 20 to 28 percent profit margin on the individual’s health is immoral and unnecessary. And then once catastrophic is guaranteed and paid for by the government, we don’t have to worry about it. And you move into a competitive market, and you make your preventative care, paid for on an as needed basis which sort of changes the entire model of how to take care of yourself. So you make sure you go to the doctor once a year, you exercise more, you eat better because if you take care of yourself, it will cost you less money, then the services become competitive, so you can actually shop around. You’re not restricted to an in-network type of doctor or that sort of situation, and I think you will see a drop in the expenses of how much health care is and everyone will be able to afford it and will go to the doctor. Why we expect a preventative care health to be paid for by anybody is sort of a strange phenomena and it also causes a lopsided service within the economy and for the general population.

Question: What do you think of the Freelancers Union healthcare policy?

Scott Adkins: The model that the freelancers’ union has is actually probably a step in the right direction because they’ve taken it on their own, providing their own service of health insurance, reducing the profit margin, eliminating it, giving the power of group to negotiate rates downs. You still have the fundamental issue of in-network and lack of choice but it does create a model that’s more affordable for freelancers. So it’s a necessary stop gap I think to probably the ultimate goal which is to abolish health insurance by and large.If you look at the differences between how much health insurance cost in New York state versus how much health insurance cost in Iowa, say, it’s a dramatic difference, and that just shouldn’t exist. Why does health insurance costs more in certain places and in certain places not? It just shouldn’t exist.

Question: Do you like any overseas healthcare models?

Scott Adkins: I look at them as mostly unattractive just because of the nightmares that they project. If you look at the National Health Service in England, I know people who think of that as like how not to provide health care which is why the concept of a competitive healthcare market becomes much more attractive than a completely nationalized one. What you want to do is create an environment where people are seeking services for what they need,

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