美国国家公共电台 NPR Patients Are Turning To GoFundMe To Fill Health Insurance Gaps

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MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

According to GoFundMe, 1 of every 3 of its online campaigns is now related to medical expenses. Some appeals are for people who say they don't have health insurance. Others say they have big bills left over after insurance or treatments their insurance won't cover. Mark Zdechlik of Minnesota Public Radio reports.

MARK ZDECHLIK, BYLINE¹: Browsing² the medical section of GoFundMe's web page is heartbreaking. There are stories upon stories of tragic³ illness and financial hardship. Health care economist⁴ Sara Collins with the Commonwealth⁵ Fund finds the trend worrisome.

SARA COLLINS: It shouldn't be surprising that people are raising funds through crowdsourcing, but it really should be a deep concern for policymakers and providers.

ZDECHLIK: Most medical appeals follow a pattern. There's a picture of someone who is ill, an explanation of what's wrong, how much money is needed and what donations will be spent on.

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ZDECHLIK: Carolyn Deal of Marshall, N.C., included a recording⁶ of her playing the harp⁷ in her appeal for help.

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CAROLYN DEAL: Hi. This is a tune⁸ I wrote called "Water Fairies."

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ZDECHLIK: Deal lost almost all of her hearing following a traumatic brain injury. She's close to reaching her goal of raising $25,000 to pay for medical procedures her insurance won't cover. There are several online crowdsourced fundraising platforms GoFundMe is the largest by far and boasts 50 million donations that have raised more than $5 billion since it began eight years ago.

ROB SOLOMON: We help people tell their story, and that's probably one of the most significant things.

ZDECHLIK: That GoFundMe CEO Rob Solomon, who says a third of the money has gone to help people battling health problems. There's nothing new about people coming together to help each other in times of need, but Solomon says technology has exploded fundraising potential and that people need help.

SOLOMON: In the old paradigm⁹, you would give $20 to somebody who needed help. In the new paradigm, you will give $20 dollars. You'll share that, and that could turn into 10, 20, 50, or a hundred people doing that. So the $20 could turn into hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.

ZDECHLIK: And it's not just people without health insurance who are turning to crowdsourced fundraisers to help cover medical bills because ever-increasing cost sharing, including copayments and deductibles, with many of today's health plans have left many with health insurance they cannot afford to use. Again, Rob Solomon.

SOLOMON: In the U.S., we obviously have some challenges with our health care system and with how insurance works and how people are covered. There's just a lot of costs associated with the medical space, and it has become a very important category on GoFundMe.

ZDECHLIK: Tammy Fox lives in suburban¹⁰ Minneapolis. She's fine, but her friend Donna is sick with a rare and difficult-to-diagnose autoimmune disorder¹¹. Her friend has had to make many trips to the Mayo Clinic.

TAMMY FOX: You've got meals. You've got hotel stay and, like I said, gas. So that all needed to be covered.

ZDECHLIK: There will also be medical bills Donna's insurance won't cover, so Fox started a GoFundMe campaign, and Donna's getting some contributions from people she doesn't even know.

FOX: It's crazy cool how awesome¹² people are and what they're willing to give. People, when they come together, can just move mountains, and I think that's awesome to see.

ZDECHLIK: The Commonwealth Fund recently surveyed working-age Americans, asking whether they could pay an unexpected medical bill of a thousand dollars in 30 days. Nearly half said no. GoFundMe says it expects continued growth in what it calls social fundraising, including campaigns to help people who are ill. For NPR News, I'm Mark Zdechlik in St. Paul.

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KELLY: And that story is part of a reporting partnership¹³ with NPR, Minnesota Public Radio and Kaiser Health News.

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