--- title: Young and Uninsured: Cartoonist Julia Wertz | TIME description: New York Cartoonist Julia Wertz, creator of the autobiographical comic The Fart Party, has an autoimmune disease and no health coverage canonical: https://time.com/video/6dDA3xfu/ og:title: Young and Uninsured: Cartoonist Julia Wertz og:description: New York Cartoonist Julia Wertz, creator of the autobiographical comic The Fart Party, has an autoimmune disease and no health coverage og:url: https://time.com/video/6dDA3xfu/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/6dDA3xfu/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Young and Uninsured: Cartoonist Julia Wertz twitter:description: New York Cartoonist Julia Wertz, creator of the autobiographical comic The Fart Party, has an autoimmune disease and no health coverage twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/6dDA3xfu/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Young and Uninsured: Cartoonist Julia Wertz > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Young and Uninsured: Cartoonist Julia Wertz [Watch (HLS stream): Young and Uninsured: Cartoonist Julia Wertz](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/6dDA3xfu.m3u8) (3:25)  _Published 2009-11-10. New York Cartoonist Julia Wertz, creator of the autobiographical comic The Fart Party, has an autoimmune disease and no health coverage_ --- Jul 27, 2023 1:15 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Julia Trying Cameo](/video/fe8bIodY/) ### Julia Trying Cameo [TIME Raw: Ted Cruz Slams Washpo Cartoonist](/video/WQEbouSs/) ### TIME Raw: Ted Cruz Slams Washpo Cartoonist [Kate Beaton's Advice for Kids Who Want to be Cartoonists](/video/DNOpAnYk/) ### Kate Beaton's Advice for Kids Who Want to be Cartoonists --- ## Transcript I make my life into cartoon-- my life into comics 'cause once I put things on paper, and I add a punch line to it, I'm like-- Oh! That's okay. That's a funny, you know, thing I put on the internet now. My name is Julia Wertz and I'm a cartoonist. My comic is called Fart Party which has not many farts in it which just seems disappointing and I live In Greenpoint in Brooklyn, New York. My Lupus went into remission before I moved to New York and lost my healthcare so I didn't bother / couldn't afford to renew it. You know, cause I got that whole " I'm Invincible because I'm young ," thing going on, so stupid yet so common. But what about the fact that lupus is a chronic disease and that I've had to go to the ER almost a dozen times for injuries and illnesses? Bah, I'm too tired of being angry at the health care system to join it. That's a totally legit complaint. I should move to Canada. I found out that I had Lupus when I was 20 and I was in college. It's a lot like arthritis, like my hands will cramp up and my knees will hurt really bad-- When it really reacts, like it can attack your liver, and it can attack your kidneys, and it can cause brain damage if it goes uncheck which is why it's really a scary disease. I don't have insurance right now. I do have $ 3, 000 owed in medical bills for a recent trip to the ER, so I had a fundraiser and I sold a lot of artwork and just in general, kind of gathered people together to tell stories. So this is the donation box that I had at this fundraiser to pay off my ER bill. It turns out though that because most of my friends are cartoonist, they're uninsured too and pretty much everyone I talked to had a medical bill that they were not paying off. So you don't really, you know, ask those people for money so it was more, just a, kind of gathering in a place to bitch about healthcare. In order to get Medicaid, you have to make no more than $ 900 a month which is insane if you live in New York because $ 900 is rent, so, you know, you basically have to be homeless to qualify for it and then-- so I made a little bit too much 'cause I'm making about $ 1, 200 a month right now. It shouldn't be that the only healthcare available to me is a $ 400 or $ 500 plan just because I'm sick. To pay you to be sick is crazy. Because I don't have health insurance right now, I found a clinic in Manhattan that will do blood work for $ 125 flat fee and I've been going there once every three months just to make sure that, you know, all my lab work is okay. When it's cheaper than insurance but at the same time they won't do more than that and now, I'm just waiting for healthcare reform to pass to see what my options are. 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