GoFundMe is comical, every day there is a new idiot asking for money for not buying (or invalidating) their travel insurance . Little Fred is sitting in hospital now with bills over $xx,xxx due to a motorbike accident whilst backpacking in XYZ, please give generously so Little Fred can keep his iPhoneX and his large family don't have to put their hands in their pocket.
GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding
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Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding
#52I like to write short stories in my free time. One that I’ve been working on over the last year is one where the concept of “crowdfunded healthcare” evolves into a dystopian game show where people go on TV and share their sob story on why they need money. Then the viewers at home get to choose who gets the show’s prize money each season through a bracket style voting system that crowns a champion at the end. I had to…
One thing I’ve been studying a lot on my free time is the deep history of the concept of socialism. Not a particular implementation but the idea that it would be a good idea for us to intentionally build a world where everyone has certain basic needs met by society at large. In particular there is a rich history of “libertarian socialism” which advocates for direct social support of one another without a state. Typically it is advocated that this be done via organizational structures that do not require any individual to reach in to their pocket when another is in need, but by arranging society such that things like medical care are simply abundant, and only ever putting effort in to unnecessary developments (luxuries) once the basic needs of all people have been met. Obviously doing this is nontrivial and could only be achieved through a long process of repeated democratic decision making.
The idea that we could care for one another without a state is both obvious and perplexing. People have always cared for themselves somewhere in the world even if some societies have been highly centralized.
All this said, I have been fostering a deep appreciation for socialism as a utopian ideal to be discussed rather than either a bogey man or as something that requires the expansion of state power to realize. Many well meaning leftists have empowered authoritarians in their effort to force their desired outcomes. At the same time, the state as it stands today could be used to materially improve the lives of many impoverished people.
I think the answer is to use the state as needed in the short term to help those in need, while recognizing the “technical debt” it creates by ultimately undermining freedom. Any work done with the state should be done cautiously and with the understanding that the state power will need in the long term to be eclipsed by power organized by the people. And we cannot simply advocate for state power - long term we must build these structures inside our society, not rely on state power to enforce our idea of a just society.
But we must fight for socialism. I’ve enjoyed these two videos by Murray Bookchin recently.
This critique of the left from 1986 is hugely applicable to today (he even mentions Bernie Sanders briefly): https://youtu.be/kBP_BMOblzc
This video gets at the way our fantasies about technology can ignore our own desires as human beings, and presents an interesting contrast between then notion of futurism and utopianism: https://youtu.be/wS3-PffLKqM
Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
From my perspective, it shouldn't. Yes, its cold and heartless to say so, but wanting children isn't a health issue.
Could you not argue that it is a mental health issue?
I feel like people go more crazy as a result of having kids than as a result of not having them.
Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding
#54We need to get rid of health insurance companies. They are the reason all of our costs are massively inflated. The same thing is happening in education: universities know that a large percentage of students are getting financial aid, so the true costs are buried in a layer of bureaucracy. Fees and administrative fees continue to go up and the universities will always get their money. The students are then on the hook…
Even if all the bureaucracy of insurance went away, major operations would still likely be tens of thousands of dollars. How do you suggest people pay for that?
We all do! Something something single payer.
Edit: not sure why the downvotes, that’s the reality of things. If you want a more fully fleshed out thought, here you go:
We would all contribute to the payment of expensive operations via taxes in a single payer system. In the current system we have insurance payments. It’s effectively the same, paying a small fee regularly, to subsidize the costs for expensive procedures for yourself and (surprise) others. What do you think happens if you pay into insurance your whole life and never need an expensive operation? You’re subsidizing others. Otherwise the insurance companies would be out of business.
But with single payer, we cut out companies in the middle pulling a heafty profit for effectively the same system as we could get via taxes.
Better?
Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding
#55>Or the Tennessee couple who want to get pregnant, but whose insurance doesn’t cover the $20,000 worth of “medications, surgeries, scans, lab monitoring, and appointments [that] will need to be paid for upfront and out-of-pocket” for in vitro fertilization. Would an ideal healthcare system cover in vitro for anyone, full stop? Took a buzz through the NHS requirements[0] and there are definitely restrictions. And in v…
Health stuff, including IVF, should not be crowd funded. These are by definition universal problems that will be addressed most efficiently collectively.
The question of what reproduction society should support is entirely distinct from that of getting health care for your reproduction.
Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding
#56I like to write short stories in my free time. One that I’ve been working on over the last year is one where the concept of “crowdfunded healthcare” evolves into a dystopian game show where people go on TV and share their sob story on why they need money. Then the viewers at home get to choose who gets the show’s prize money each season through a bracket style voting system that crowns a champion at the end. I had to…
Not exactly this, but in Brazil there's actually a TV show called "In the red", where the requirement for being a contestant is that they must have debt that they can't pay off. The winner gets to pay off their debt, losers go home empty handed.
Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding
#57We need to get rid of health insurance companies. They are the reason all of our costs are massively inflated. The same thing is happening in education: universities know that a large percentage of students are getting financial aid, so the true costs are buried in a layer of bureaucracy. Fees and administrative fees continue to go up and the universities will always get their money. The students are then on the hook…
Even if all the bureaucracy of insurance went away, major operations would still likely be tens of thousands of dollars. How do you suggest people pay for that?
Mutual aid, same as any other problem. Presumably if there aren’t the resources or people or they deserve not having kids they won’t. Anything else is hard to justify at all.
Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding
#58I like to write short stories in my free time. One that I’ve been working on over the last year is one where the concept of “crowdfunded healthcare” evolves into a dystopian game show where people go on TV and share their sob story on why they need money. Then the viewers at home get to choose who gets the show’s prize money each season through a bracket style voting system that crowns a champion at the end. I had to…
> On that note, I find it supremely fucked up that people have to turn to crowdfunding to get their unexpected healthcare costs covered by benevolent internet citizens.
So who should pay for it? All taxpayers instead? All countries that have tried that are now in the red. The only good solution, I think, it to work to make healthcare a lot cheaper in the long run.
Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding
#59I like to write short stories in my free time. One that I’ve been working on over the last year is one where the concept of “crowdfunded healthcare” evolves into a dystopian game show where people go on TV and share their sob story on why they need money. Then the viewers at home get to choose who gets the show’s prize money each season through a bracket style voting system that crowns a champion at the end. I had to…
> On that note, I find it supremely fucked up that people have to turn to crowdfunding to get their unexpected healthcare costs covered by benevolent internet citizens. So who should pay for it? All taxpayers instead? All countries that have tried that are now in the red. The only good solution, I think, it to work to make healthcare a lot cheaper in the long run.
The US is the only major developed country that doesn't have universal healthcare and they are still deep "in the red".
Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
In universal care you dont get access to 'clinical trials and research and things like that, where people need access to leading-edge potential treatments' You are also not eliminated the need to get funds, you are changing who you are asking them from. And let me tell you that government officials are seldom generous.
> government officials are seldom generous If government officials are using the same healthcare system as everybody else, they have incentive to make it good.
They have the incentive to make the ones they use good.
This idea has shown to not happen in real life. Public schools, for example, do not deliver a "uniform" service.