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Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

bbc.com

201–210 of 495 posts

Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#201
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Universal Health Insurance as all other developed countries do

Expensive health treatments can easily bankrupt any western government. None of those developed countries can afford to spend their money indiscriminately on them. So instead they turn to waiting lists, death panels and very often saying no but not in your face (since that is politically frowned upon) but thought delays and countless committees and bureaucracy until the patient expires...

> waiting lists, death panels and very often saying no

As we all know, American insurance companies never deny coverage, nor do you ever have to wait in an American hospital. /s

Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#202
post #41

The root cause of the problem is that parents and children need to raise funds for cancer treatment in the first place.

Is there even standard practices to audit the effectiveness of charity? No accountability means they will always operate like a black box, and I’ve always thought black boxes create misalignments.

Money goes in, and good feelings come out. It certainly serves a purpose, but not the intended one.

Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#203
post #8

"The campaigns with the biggest apparent international reach were under the name of an organisation called Chance Letikva (Chance for Hope, in English) - registered in Israel and the US." Chance Letikva is registered with the US IRS as a charity. They've filed a Form 990. Location is Brooklyn, NY. [1] Address is listed. It's a small house. It's also incorporated as CHANCE LETIKVA, INC. in New York State. Address matc…

The article says they visited both the US and Israel registration addresses and didn't find the organisation's offices. I was impressed by the amount of "on the ground digging" by the journalists here!

It's really not that hard to find someone to go to check a address, redditors do this all the time. It should be expected as basic journalism, especially with high claims.

Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#204

"They were always looking for beautiful children with white skin." But most of the children in the video appear to be non-white. So they're not even good at anti-affirmative-action?

Or it's just BBC doing BBC stuff.

Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#205
post #65
post #41

The root cause of the problem is that parents and children need to raise funds for cancer treatment in the first place.

It's likely caused by the very same thing that causes human beings to knowingly and willingly steal money from children that need that money to live.

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Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#206
post #83
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not non-productive individuals who don't do any work can own the means of production and reap the majority of the economic surplus from it is somewhat tangential to the question of who pays for whose healthcare. There are plenty of capitalist nations that provide public healthcare on a large spectrum of coverage and quality.

With 2 month long plus waits for basic scans in countries like Canada

I prefer that over people having to start a GoFundme whenever they get sick. My relatives in Germany get necessary treatment as needed. There is the myth of no wait times in the US but from my experience there are also of wait times here.

Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#207
post #41

The root cause of the problem is that parents and children need to raise funds for cancer treatment in the first place.

[flagged]

What are you suggesting is the alternative? Please don't reference small homogenous countries the size of Minnesota as something that will work for the US.

Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#208
post #41

The root cause of the problem is that parents and children need to raise funds for cancer treatment in the first place.

We have over the years raised billions (maybe trillions) for cancer treatments and we seem to have made negligible progress in actually curing cancer. Will it ever succeed? So maybe there is a root cause for your root cause?

Demonstrably false. There are immunotherapies today that can completely cure cancer.

Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#209
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any system needs a resource allocation algorithm. In capitalism it is easy and transparent: price, with the side effect of aligning society interests with those of the selfish individual. Of course the strange and heavily regulated US health-care system is obviously far far away from a free market. In socialism it's much more random: black markets, lists, lotteries, friends and network of connections. The side effect…

Can't think of a socialist country, but invite you to visit the German system. Significantly less costly for society and objectively better for the people falling ill (or just having a baby born). And no, no lists, no lotteries or any of that other lies the conservative US media is spewing out to keep the masses pacified. I strongly believe, that if US citizens were to experience German healthcare for a year and havi…

Yep, loving my gesetzliche Krankenkasse (public health insurance, which is more like "highly regulated insurance"), even more than I liked the Privatkrankenversicherung (less highly regulated, but still with better guardrails than a lot of things I've seen in the States) I was on my first decade in the system here. Sure, there are some specialists who won't accept it, or who will give you a sooner appointment if you're private pay, but in that situation, you have the option of declaring that you're a self-payer that quarter, and your public insurance will reimburse in the amount they normally would have for that procedure or exam. For things like an MRI, the full retail cost in Germany is still much lower than in the US (it was about 600 EUR for my back a few years ago, while I was still privately insured, and I still had to wait for reimbursment).

Even once I do hit the income threshold to switch back to private (switching back to fulltime work), I'm pretty sure I won't.

As far as doctor choice goes, I feel like I have more on the public insurance here (like 90% of the population) than I did with UHC in the early 2000's back in the US. I certainly have fewer financial surprises.

Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#210
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am yet to see any western nations go bankrupt for universal healthcare. I have three second-hand cancer experiences from family here in Australia (Dad, Mum and my half-sister - under 35/yo). All three were detected early thanks to regular checkups and screening (covered under Medicare), treated in major hospitals (Dad was in a rural hospital, Mum and half-sister in Metro major city hospitals) and are all alive and…

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This is actually how the US is getting away with their twice-as-expensive-as-the-rest-of-the-OECD setup for a little while longer.

The end of ACA subsidies is probably gonna collapse that approach.

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