GoFundMe Has Become a Health Care Utility - KFF Health News
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Resorting to crowdfunding to pay medical bills has become so routine, in some cases health professionals recommend it.

GoFundMe started as a crowdfunding site for underwriting “ideas and dreams,” and, as GoFundMe’s co-founders, Andrew Ballester and Brad Damphousse, once put it, “for life’s important moments.” In the early years, it funded honeymoon trips, graduation gifts, and church missions to overseas hospitals in need. Now GoFundMe has become a go-to platform for patients trying to escape medical billing nightmares.

One study found that, in 2020, the annual number of U.S. campaigns related to medical causes — about 200,000 — was 25 times the number of such campaigns on the site in 2011. More than 500 current campaigns are dedicated to asking for financial help for treating people, mostly kids, who have spinal muscular atrophy, a neurodegenerative genetic condition. The recently approved gene therapy for young children with the condition, by the drugmaker Novartis, has a price tag of about $2.1 million for the single-dose treatment.

  • Gloria@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    30·
    9 months ago

    It is basically how a social healthcare system works, where people pay for healthcare that is not benefiting themself. Just make the step already to a National healthcare system.

      • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.mlEnglish
        11·
        9 months ago

        I know the standard reddit response to a comment was “Not with that attitude!” but that’s literally the case here.

        When Social Security was first proposed, it was opposed by the American Medical Association and Ronald Reagan released an LP record saying it was going to lead to a communist takeover of America. There was in fact a whole push along those lines.

        It still got passed because Americans were behind it.

        The information warfare landscape is lined up to allow for complete corporate advantage. Take a look at the cases against the US government putting warning labels on cigarettes equivalent to those in Australia. Take a look at masking policies and regulations against disinformation or hate speech.

        Things can change, but there’s a causal relationship there that’s going to have to change first.

      • SubArcticTundra@lemmy.mlEnglish
        3·
        9 months ago

        Perhaps it could pass if it was an opt-in system…
        Or maybe there could at least be an Fairtrade Capitalism element introduced, could a health insurer be a customer-owned cooperative, similar to credit unions?

  • h_ramus@lemm.eeEnglish
    6·
    9 months ago

    So, everyone acknowledges that consolidating risk benefits from natural hedges, a large purchaser of services has greater bargaining power and that centralising service provision enables accumulating knowledge and efficiencies. This is all evidenced in the private sector and consolidation. However, when it comes to healthcare risk pools have to be split, services are provided by multiple providers with limited information available on risks covered and additional admin layers are brought in to manage the embedded inefficiencies from a poorly designed system.

    The level of retardation of privatised healthcare beggars belief.