While locals will occasionally ask us to post their gofundmes or highlight ones they’ve come across, such features can lead to passionate discussions, sometimes blaming us for being a conduit and sometimes with nasty trolls blaming the person asking for help.
We’ve noticed women in particular face the brunt of condescending comments. Tragically, many of the gofundmes we are asked to promote trace back in some way to being unable to pay mounting medical bills.
In these cases, gofundmes are often a last gasp measure. As a curated social media bulletin board for the community, we are more than ready to help those in need trying to get crowdfunding, knowing very well that there are inequalities there as well, where it becomes all about the story, how the story is framed, an accompanying video and social connections to make the campaign successful.
Rather than blaming each other, we should be blaming our awful health care system, in which many of us even when insured avoid preventative care and only go in for treatment under the most dire of circumstances, and in those cases trying as best we can to take ourselves to the ER, to avoid those exorbitant emergency transport fees.
Even if we are willing to go in for a checkup while insured, it can become an almost impossible ordeal to find a local doctor who is available, let alone friendly and with the time to act the very least bit human.
If a costly medical problem does happen, especially for the underinsured or the totally uninsured, studies have shown a strong correlation between resulting medical debt and the likelihood and then duration of homelessness.
So why don’t we stop blaming each other or comment in a demeaning way when we see a gofundme coming from a neighbor in our community?
Instead, let’s keep fighting to improve our dismal health care system, which according to a recent study ranks last in terms of access, equity and outcomes compared to other wealthy nations (way behind Australia, the Netherlands, the UK, New Zealand, France, Sweden, Canada, Switzerland and Germany) despite being the highest-spending health care system in the world.