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Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

bbc.com

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

#301

Post by hermannj314 »

eleveriven wrote: post #161
tchalla wrote: post #41

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

The fact that families have to crowdfund lifesaving care creates the vulnerability but it doesn't force anyone to build an industrialized scam on top of it

Whether taxes, health insurance, the Church, or gofundme, technically all life saving care is mostly crowd-funded. Maybe not in some Wild West dystopia, but generally the pooling of funds seems to work better than solo funding.

Involuntary, progressive crowdfunding through government threat of violence (taxes) seems to work better than the other methods and most consider it humane. Americans have shown little interest historically in doing the humane thing, unfortunately.

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

#302

Post by duskdozer »

hermanzegerman wrote: post #253
duskdozer wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also an often-overlooked issue, which is that some of the crowdfunded treatments are for things deemed "experimental" or whatever other label and thus not covered for even an insured person. This situation exists in both public and private healthcare systems. I'm not arguing in favor of a for-profit system with this, but people often miss this when they haven't personally run into uncommon health problems.

If a treatment isn't approved yet, you can usually submit a request for getting it paid. You need to show that it has a chance of working (literature etc...) and it will be reviewed by a doctor from the "Medical Service" which is independent from the Health Insurers. If they decide it should be paid, it will be paid (which is most of the time the case). Otherwise you can go through the social courts. (No court costs…

Interesting. Do people win in any significant number of cases, or is it more like the "appeals" process in for-profit systems, where it's supposedly possible to win but generally does not happen?

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

#303

Post by binary132 »

philipallstar wrote: post #242
impossiblefork wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market economy. Capitalism is a name for the bad thing-- "the accumulation of capital by some to the exclusion of others". Those who argue for a market economy usually claim that with their rule, it won't be accumulation of capital by some to the exclusion of others, with them assuring us that there will be free markets and competition. Both actual capitalism, i.e. the bad thing, and this which can plausible be argue…

> Communist distribution principles can coexist with ill-functioning market systems such as things which have degenerated into actual capitalism, whereas the socialist distribution principle can't. You won't have to worry about distributing advanced cancer medications when they don't exist in the Communist version, because they weren't discovered. You can't fulfil a need with a drug you never risked a giant amount of…

I’m the farthest thing from a communist, but what makes you think public funding cannot be given to drug research?

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

#304

Post by philipallstar »

binary132 wrote: post #303
philipallstar wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Communist distribution principles can coexist with ill-functioning market systems such as things which have degenerated into actual capitalism, whereas the socialist distribution principle can't. You won't have to worry about distributing advanced cancer medications when they don't exist in the Communist version, because they weren't discovered. You can't fulfil a need with a drug you never risked a giant amount of…

I’m the farthest thing from a communist, but what makes you think public funding cannot be given to drug research?

It can be, but who decides what to work on? Capitalism puts risk and reward off to the side, to be done by experts. Why take the risk if you have no reward, and, conversely, why give someone a load of money to allocate if there's no risk for them if it fails?

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

#305

Post by Foobar8568 »

55555 wrote: post #285
throwaway198846 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe all countries should automatically extradiate every person any other country demands? Or that there should be a limit on such process?

Israel is a special case.

No it's not.

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

#306

Post by redleader55 »

tchalla wrote: post #41

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

I think it's more complicated than this. People with incurable diseases are desperate and sometimes resort to unproven, dangerous and very expensive treatments. Unfortunately, most people don't have enough money for that, so in order to afford them they try to obtain donations to pursue the treatment they think will save them. Places like Turkey, China, etc are heavens for this kind of medicine.

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

#307

Post by netsharc »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #261
netsharc wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the scammer were Muslim, many people would have no issue ascribing blame to swathes of people with the same religion, calling the religion itself cancer. Huh, maybe people can ask for donations to be cured of that "cancer"...

[flagged]

Hah.. so whose brain is washed with propaganda, yours or mine? Definitely mine right?

Your convictions are as extremely deluded as a Palestinian suicide bomber's, to my ears.

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

#308

Post by astura »

zwnow wrote: post #9
teekert wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least not when some rando stops you on the street.

I always donate to the random homeless people stopping me on the street. Doesn't really matter to me what they do with it, whatever keeps them warm.

That can cause perverse incentives such as children taken out of school so they can beg full time, such as this - https://archive.is/32Btf five of them are now dead as a result.

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

#309

Post by laughingcurve »

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #259
eleveriven wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that families have to crowdfund lifesaving care creates the vulnerability but it doesn't force anyone to build an industrialized scam on top of it

> doesn't force anyone to build an industrialized scam on top of it The incentives are there. Our economy runs on incentives. Create a vulnerable group and the sharks smell blood in the water.

Incentives don’t remove agency. They might have incentives… but these are awful scum who deserve nothing but contempt

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

#310

Post by beepbooptheory »

simonh wrote: post #164
orwin wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong and prosperous economy built by progressive tax rate that used to tax up to 70% of non-work income, and now tax most of it 27-29% (depending on the corporate taxe of the state). The people who can use loopholes to avoid income taxes also pay reduced consumption tax (they usually pay the 'Use tax' rather than sale tax in the US, and can basically ignore VAT in Europe).

Sure, capitalism isn't perfect. No economic system is, mainly because they're all composed of us semi-evolved chimps. Every economic system has that problem. Getting rid of or severely constraining economic freedoms isn't a solution, it makes it worse.

Ok but if its taken you just three comments to get to "well... nothing is perfect I guess" where did that initial conviction come from?? Like why even play out this same argument if your heart isn't even in it? Is it a sense of obligation? If anything, you do your entire position a disservice by folding so quickly. It just goes to show noone deep down even believes these stories anymore, even we expect others to.

Like, yes, we are discussing an "imperfection" here! You are the one that asserting the greater perfection, not the lesser.

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