It's worth remembering that it was Utah Phillips' plight a
decade or so ago--- needing heart surgery and like most folksingers,
no insurance, that led to two things:

1. A great round of benefits, including one run by the NJ Folk
   Project, to help defray the costs
2. The organization of AFM Local 1000, to bring health insurance
   and a host of other benefits, to traveling (and local) folk
   and ethnic musicians who, in spite of singing a lot of union
   songs, had been denied the benefits of union membership until
   that time.

(1) was a good idea.

(2) is still a good idea, in spite of the attempts by some of the
organizers to muddy the waters with issues beyond the well-being
of the rank-and-file membership and to use the union as a platform
for their personal (and in some cases worthy) crusades, and in
the process alienating whole segments of the very people they
sought to bring into the 'fold.'