Current Events > The medical GoFundMe campaigns that don't get funded

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https://www.gq.com/story/unfunded-medical-gofundme?

... A telling sign is what happens when you search health insurance. The lack of health insurance is a uniquely American problem among industrialized countries, one borne of the sheer go-it-alone malice of our frayed social contract. A search for the term health insurance returns over one million campaigns. Scanning through them is a brief glimpse into a maelstrom of social collapse. As Medicare For All in all the variations Democratic presidential candidates have come up withis debated on brightly lit stages, and the Trump administration fights to whittle down the Affordable Care Act in court, GoFundMe offers a close-up view of the human cost of inadequate policy.

On GoFundMe, you can help buy health insurance for Gilda, a grandmother of six, her long white hair flowing down her back in one photo and buzzed in the next. Last week I had my first session of chemo with my daughter by my side, she writes. I'm very fortunate my health insurance is excellent and my co-pays are low. I'm very grateful for that. But I find that I won't be able to work full time during this and I have no savings to fill in the gaps in income. This is my last resort to be able to stay in my apartment. She has raised less than half of what she needs.

Scroll down a page and find Sam. He is entering the priesthood. I do not have enough in savings to pay my health insurance bills after I have left my job for a life of prayer and study, he writes. You have my gratitude and prayers for any amount, however small, you can provide for this purpose. But prayers cannot make up for the missing $1,700.

Robert, a young father, shows us the ultrasound, the swimmy picture of a forming life. He doesnt have health care at his job and he wants a healthy baby and a healthy wife. We got denied on Medi-Cal, he writes. God Bless your Heart.

A few clicks away, Sherry has raised $20 of $20,000. Shes a new grandmother at 49, with stage 4 non-Hodgkins lymphoma. At diagnosis I first looked my own fate in the eye, she writes, to a sea of strangers. Im not that person that requires help or even asks for it, but i'm over $20,000 behind & just trying to see out.

Amanda writes that she is starving to death, about to endure surgery to remove her stomach and surviving on V8 juice in the interim, which is not covered by her food stamps. Ive spent the last 2 years trying not to die, she writes. I have co-pays and prescription costs. She has raised $25.

There are hundreds, thousands more stories. Its the dark shadow of the viral success story, of the whole town coming together for a charity clambake, of the fully-funded child beaming from beneath a web of tubes. Under a thin scrim of inspirational success is an ocean of pain, of loss, of fear and precarity. Clicking through each is a public window into private pain. Cumulatively, it is a source of rage.
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Clicking through the stories, the mind strains to understand how we have failed so many people so badly. How can we have failed Alfreda, who is working three jobs to afford her daughters cerebral palsy treatment? The baclofen pump is failing sooner than expected and the bills are due. And she loves her daughter. And shes raised $350 out of a $10,000 goal.

There are thousands of these stories; there are over a million, in fact. You should not have to be photogenic and spell well and have a lot of friends on social media not to die in debt. You should not have to ask for largesse from the Internet not to drown, but the waters are rising all around us, and from those dark waters, grasping hands rise like anemones, and clutch for a spar or at air.

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This country is evil
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It's fucked up.
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KiwiTerraRizing posted...

This country is evil

after seeing a lot of it in my 39 years, I agree.

specifically its systems and institutions.
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I seriously hope once Warren becomes president we fix this shit. We had a chance with Obama but the country wasn't ready yet

Politics posted...

I seriously hope once Warren becomes president we fix this shit. We had a chance with Obama but the country wasn't ready yet

as long as we allow that money to pass through the rich and powerful medical lobbies will just put more $ in congress' pocket.
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The priest one is dumb. Dont quit your job for what is essentially a full time hobby if you cant afford it.
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This stuff is crazy to see from an outsiders countries perspective.

I'm trying to think of an analogy. I guess it would be like if your employer had to pay for 'police insurance' and if you ever needed help from the police you would get hit with a hefty bill. Even that isn't comparable because I've barely had to interact with the police. Hospitals and doctors have been very important for myself and my family.

It's just nuts.
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Chicken posted...

The priest one is dumb. Dont quit your job for what is essentially a full time hobby if you cant afford it.

Yeah was just gonna say that. Being a full-time fairy tale peddler is a luxury, not a need. The system shouldn't be expected to take care of you if you want to do that. Either save the money until you can do it yourself, or ask the church to pay for it via donations (the Vatican certainly has enough money), or stick to your day job.

I sympathize with some of these situations but some of them are ridiculous. I'd be interested in seeing how many of them are similarly ridiculous or a result of people's own choices throughout life. The current system definitely sucks, but let's not excuse individuals from making good choices too. Bernie's system isn't going to magically solve problems. If anything it'll cause even more GoFundMe campaigns once the tens of millions who are self-employed and/or uninsured take home 10-15 percent less income despite their paycheck to paycheck expenses remaining the same. Gonna be a lot more foreclosures and bankruptcies then.

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