Health insurance is not provided by the UFC or any other MMA federation within the US. Joe Stevenson recently traveled to Tijuana to get X-rays. http://mmajunkie.com/news/20140/wit...heads-to-mexico-wants-takanori-gomi-fight.mma $500/month doesn't seem like much for someone like Stevenson who makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year fighting for the UFC, but for the lesser guys, the ones making $5000 or less fighting two or three times per year for the UFC, $500 a month can be a heavy burden. Dana White said that health insurance for the fighters is too expensive. He said that fighters are most often covered by the UFC for injuries sustained in fights but whether or not they get ongoing treatment--especially the lower tier fighters--is much cloudier. Its likely they don't. Considering the UFC makes a bare-bones minimum of $5,000,000 per PPV ($32.5m gross) the insurance premiums shouldn't be untenable. $500/month = $6000/annum * 250 fighters = $1.5m/year. Even if it was $1000/month per fighter, $3m is nothing to the UFC. They could even charge the fighters a premium to recoup. Seems like the only way for the fighters to get benefits is through representation because DW and other MMA fed presidents are not willing to give it freely.
Kind of shocking that the UFC hasn't offered it yet. The last thing they want to do is give the fighters reason to unionize. Next thing you know you've got the NBA Players Association, and they're eating up all the profits. If I were White, I'd look at it as a long-term investment in keeping my fighters healthy (and underpaid what they could make if unionized).
