Not upset with with the
crowdfunding service for providing resources to those in desperate need, 2020
presidential candidate lashed out against a system that creates the need for
such campaigns in the first place.
Monday, December 09, 2019
A day before a crucial
hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives focused on crucial
Medicare for All legislation, 2020 Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders on
Monday denounced as an "abomination" the fact that crowdsourcing
company GoFundMe has a page on its website offering "Six Cancer
Fundraising Tips to Help You Raise More Money" for those suffering
from the combined tragedy of a cancer diagnosis and being too poor to afford
medical treatment.
Not upset with GoFundMe for
providing resources to those in desperate need, Sanders lashed out against a
system that creates the need for such campaigns in the first place.
"No one should be forced
to use GoFundMe for health care," Sanders stated. "We are the richest
country on Earth and we are going to take care of our people. Medicare for All
now."
The GoFundMe resource page referred
to by Sanders states, "Crowdfunding has revolutionized the way people
fight cancer. Through crowdfunding, it's simple for people to quickly
raise money to pay medical bills and find both financial and
emotional support from their community. These cancer fundraising tips can help
you find financial relief so you can focus on your health."
However—as Sanders suggests in
his tweet and single-payer
advocates have long argued—the fact that a whole U.S. industry has grown up
around the
need for crowdfunded healthcare campaigns simply illustrates just how grotesque the
nation's for-profit system has become. It's not just GoFundMe. Other platforms
like MedStartr, CoFundHealth, and YouCaring—just to name a few—are all built
for the same purpose.
On Monday, showing just how
crippling and prohibitive medical care remains in the U.S., a new
national survey by Gallup revealed that one out of every four
Americans says that either they or someone in their family has delayed medical
care for a serious illness over the last year.
So what are the six things
that people trying start a crowdfunding page need to know? According to the
GoFundMe page, it's actually just five things:
Find an advocate.
Be transparent about your
financial needs.
Write a compelling fundraiser
story.
Let others know your needs.
Post frequent updates.
On Tuesday, as Common
Dreams previously reported, the
House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a public hearing on "The
Medical for All Act of 2019," introduced earlier this year by Rep. Pramila
Jayapal (D-Wash.). While not a verbatim companion bill to Sanders' version in
the Senate with the same name, the two bills are considered the strongest
pieces of single-payer legislation now in Congress.
As part of its broader
Medicare for All push, the Sanders campaign on Monday also released a new video
debunking the frequent attacks on Medicare for All by its opponents who argue
that having so-called "choice" in healthcare is a vital reason to
preserve the for-profit model that allows private insurances, drug companies,
and hospital corporations to profit of the people's illnesses. Watch:
In response to Sanders' tweet
about GoFundMe, one respondent on the platform offered this single
"tip" to make sure people are no longer subjected to the whims of
private for-profit insurers or forced to have themselves, their family, or
friends wage a crowdfunding campaign for treatment that would otherwise be
guaranteed.
"Tip #1," the
person wrote:
"Get a single payer system so that no one ever has to crowd source
healthcare to stay alive in this country ever again."
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