Yannick Benjamin
Photo via NY Times
“We just want the dignity of ordinary days.”
After three years, sommelier Yannick Benjamin closed his acclaimed Contento restaurant in New York. One reason why: being unable to fund health care for himself or his staff without forgoing his income and working a full-time job outside the restaurant.
“This is the cruel math of owning a small business and being disabled in America.”
Yannick began living with paralysis in 2003 following a car accident. 20 years later, while running a restaurant considered one of New York’s best, he still faces the out-of-pocket burden of paralysis-related expenses:
“My chair costs about $13,000 out of pocket…$6,000 gets reimbursed by my provider. In a comically dark turn, my insurer doesn’t cover the wheels.”
Yannick notes that only 40% of full-time hospitality professionals had health care coverage in 2024 compared to 87% of non-hospitality professionals.
As Yannick explained in his December 2024 editorial for the NY Times (linked below), for people like him, there is often a trade-off: to pursue a creative career, you must give up the security of health care coverage and financial stability.
Yannick is a 2022 Craig H. Neilsen Visionary Prize recipient. He began fundraising with Help Hope Live for out-of-pocket medical expenses and related costs in 2024.
