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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

#61

Post by sharkweek »

drfuchs wrote: post #40
sharkweek wrote: post #4

I 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…

Your idea of people competing for who has the biggest sob story is pretty much exactly the 1950’s TV show “Queen For A Day” (except that the studio audience did the voting).

Incredible, turns out I'm WAY behind the times I guess! - I had never heard of this before.

This from the Wikipedia article got a groan out of me:

"Often the request was for medical care or therapeutic equipment to help a chronically ill child, or might be for a hearing aid, a new washing machine, or a refrigerator. Many women broke down sobbing as they described their plights."

And then this:

The show became popular enough that NBC increased its running time from 30 to 45 minutes to sell more commercials, at a then-premium rate of $4,000 per minute

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_for_a_Day

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#62

Post by antisthenes »

temp1928384 wrote: post #36

I'm on insurance, and to be very real I have gotten bills in the past from providers that I never ended up paying. The reality is that this is more common than not...providers only collect some small % of the part of the bill the patient (and not insurance company) is responsible for. They usually end up selling this debt for pennies on the dollar to collections agencies. Do I feel guilty? Not really. But the lesson…

That's become my strategy as well.

1. Ignore all bills except the most persistent ones. Look at which ones are still being sent 3 months later.

2. Triage and sort the bills. Prioritize the ones that are related to the primary care facility where you were treated. Call them and negotiate to pay less.

3. Wait until 6 months and see if any bills are still coming. If they are, look at them again in order of priority, seeing if any of them are still reasonable and you have actually received the service/care.

After 12 months, if you haven't been receiving any care, toss any bills.

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#63

Post by mgkimsal »

A2017U1 wrote: post #59
ekianjo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

Exactly. Everyone's 'in the red'. What are people getting for that debt, and who benefits? Elite will always be 'elite', but most other countries people don't have to worry about considering bankruptcy if someone gets an illness requiring hospitalization. For some bizarre reason, we've enshrined "health care" as a "benefit" which is only morally accessible by "employed" people who have "good employers".

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#64

Post by austhrow743 »

dkashbfldls wrote: post #55
Brendinooo wrote: post #31

>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.

You can be perfectly healthy without IVF.

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#65

Post by badfrog »

dkashbfldls wrote: post #57
badfrog wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is mutual aid? I haven't heard that phrase before.

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#66

Post by conanbatt »

rosser wrote: post #49
conanbatt wrote: post #34

Earlier 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.

> In universal care you dont get access to 'clinical trials and research and things like that... [citation needed]

The US has substantial incoming medical tourism. If it really were strictly worse to european alternatives (more expensive or lower quality) europeans would not go to the US.

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#67

Post by dkashbfldls »

austhrow743 wrote: post #64
dkashbfldls wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can be perfectly healthy without IVF.

Not if your definition of health includes reproduction.

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#68

Post by dragonwriter »

sharkweek wrote: post #4

I 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…

Oddly, the only hard to believe thing I see about that scenario as an actual, real thing in the US’s very near future is the use of bracket style voting rather than whole-field voting where some number are eliminated each episode.

That would violate a strong trend in the reality competition genre.

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#69

Post by conanbatt »

bitcurious wrote: post #47
conanbatt wrote: post #34

Earlier 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.

Why not? Clinical trials in the US tend to be free from the patient's point of view.

Because governments dont spend nearly as much as private investment into the medical field, and have a very different alignment in terms of costs/revenues.

The second part of the sentence alludes to something I did not intend to imply.

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#70

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

sharkweek wrote: post #4

I 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…

The fact that it disturbs you so much is indicative of its value, I think. A lot of people were disturbed by the first Black Mirror episode, but I think it had less to do with the inherently disgusting conceit and more to do with how undeniably realistically events unfolded. It disturbed us because it shone a light on an aspect of our being that should disturb us, and we'd otherwise be content to ignore.
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