GoFundMe CEO: 'Gigantic Gaps' in Health System Showing Up In Crowdfunding

I received this info from PNHP's Don McCanne. It's from an interview from Kaiser Health New's Rachel Bluth, and it was published today (1/16/2019). She was speaking to GoFundMe CEO Rob Solomon, who is, according to Time Magazine, one of the 50 most influential people in health care. Ms. Bluth wanted to know what it says about our system "when so many people rely on the kindness of strangers to get treatment."

"Kaiser Health News
January 16, 2019
GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ In Health System Showing Up In Crowdfunding
By Rachel Bluth

Scrolling through the GoFundMe website reveals seemingly an endless number of people who need help or community support. A common theme: the cost of health care.

Of the $5 billion the company says it has raised (in eight years), about a third has been for medical expenses from more than 250,000 medical campaigns conducted annually.

The prominence of the medical category is the symptom of a broken system, according to CEO Rob Solomon. He said he never realized how hard it was for some people to pay their bills: “I needed to understand the gigantic gaps in the system.”

Solomon talked to Kaiser Health News’ Rachel Bluth about his company’s role in financing health care and what it says about the system when so many people rely on the kindness of strangers to get treatment.

Q: KHN and other news outlets have reported that hospitals often advise patients to crowdfund their transplants. It’s become almost institutionalized to use GoFundMe. How do you feel about that?

It saddens me that this is a reality. Every single day on GoFundMe we see the huge challenges people face. Their stories are heartbreaking.

Some progress has been made here and there with the Affordable Care Act, and it’s under fire, but there’s ever-widening gaps in coverage for treatment, for prescriptions, for everything related to health care costs. Even patients who have insurance and supposedly decent insurance [come up short].

I would love nothing more than for “medical” to not be a category on GoFundMe. The reality is, though, that access to health care is connected to the ability to pay for it. If you can’t do that, people die. People suffer. We feel good that our platform is there when people need it.

Q: What have you learned that you didn’t know before?

I guess what I realized [when I came] to this job is that I had no notion of how severe the problem is. You read about the debate about single-payer health care and all the issues, the partisan politics. What I really learned is the health care system in the United States is really broken. Way too many people fall through the cracks.

The government is supposed to be there and sometimes they are. The health care companies are supposed to be there and sometimes they are. But for literally millions of people they’re not. The only thing you can really do is rely on the kindness of friends and family and community. That’s where GoFundMe comes in.

Q: But what does this say about the system?

The system is terrible. It needs to be rethought and retooled. Politicians are failing us. Health care companies are failing us. Those are realities. I don’t want to mince words here. We are facing a huge potential tragedy. We provide relief for a lot of people. But there are people who are not getting relief from us or from the institutions that are supposed to be there. We shouldn’t be the solution to a complex set of systemic problems. They should be solved by the government working properly, and by health care companies working with their constituents. We firmly believe that access to comprehensive health care is a right and things have to be fixed at the local, state and federal levels of government to make this a reality."


https://khn.org/news/gofundme-ceo-gigantic-gaps-in-health-system-showing-up-in-crowdfunding/

There it is -- laid out in simple terms.  It's worth repeating: "The reality is ... that access to health care is connected to the ability to pay for it. If you can’t do that, people die." 

The question is, what are we going to do about it?  If we take this seriously -- and how is it possible NOT to -- we must spread the word, and we must put our bodies in the space.  In New York State, we have a campaign to pass the New York Health Act -- which is Single-Payer for anyone living in New York State. 

Anybody in doubt about how he or she can help can email me at indivisible12401@gmail.com. 

I'll have a few suggestions to get you started.

Dio

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