Obamacare Will Cover Sex Workers, Too -- and This 'Healthy Ho's Party' Helped Grease the Wheels

It sure wasn't your grandmother's grassroots Obamacare registration event. (Or likely a destination for the rest of your family members, either.)

Burlesque entertainment for the "Healthy Ho's Party" targeting sex workers for Obamacare signups. (Image source: CNNMoney)

Likely no sweat for attendees of the "Healthy Ho's Party" — a San Francisco Bay Area outreach to sex workers, complete with a burlesque show, encouraging them to enroll in universal health care, CNNMoney reported:

In the all-cash, off-the-books sex industry, workers can be particularly high risk and insurance is often out of reach. Many sex workers — a broad term that can refer to a number of services, including sexual massage, prostitution, and escort and dominatrix work — consider themselves self-employed entrepreneurs who can't afford to purchase healthcare. But that could all change with the Affordable Care Act.

One of the key details spelled out to the enthusiastic crowd of 40 men and women on hand to watch some stripping and fill out Obamacare paperwork: Enrollment doesn't require users to report their employment, CNNMoney reported.

Oh, and the Federal subsidies they'd get due to their income:

Individuals making less than $46,000 are eligible for a tax credit to offset their monthly costs. Many of the sex workers at the event file W-2s for their legal work, whether it be a part-time job or sex work that falls within the law. Sex workers interviewed by CNNMoney estimated this income to be less than $45,000 a year.

One of the sex workers interviewed in the segment said she should get a $211 credit each month.

"I honestly do think access to health care should be a human right," said "Maxine Holloway" (her pseudonym), adding that in the past she's been "so brainwashed to think it's such a privilege."

(Image source: CNNMoney)

As for the possibility that other Americans won't be thrilled that their tax dollars are being used to pay for sex workers' health care, Holloway dismissed the issue: "As a society we're paying for it anyways."

Here's the report from CNNMoney:

(H/T: Newsbusters)

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