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A Crowdfunding Site To Help Pay Patients' Medical Bills
Lucas123 writes: A start-up financial services company called Someone With Group has just completed a pilot of a crowdfunding service that allows hospitals to set up campaigns to help patients pay their medical expenses. The website, which is HIPAA compliant in terms of privacy and security, allows patients facing medical debts to inform family, friends and even strangers of their need for funds versus flowers or cards. The crowdfunding service also addresses a systemic debt issue in the healthcare industry. Each year, the U.S. healthcare industry writes off $40 billion in bad debt from unpaid medical bills. "Then you consider that $6 billion is spent on cards and flowers for patients every year. Why can't we redirect that money and put it into a debit instrument restricted to medical spending only?" said Jagemann-Bane, CEO of Someone With Group. One hospital group, Pinnacle Health Systems in Harrisburg, Penn., routinely writes off $40 million to $50 million a year in unpaid medical bills from patients. The hospital set up a crowdfunding site via Someone With Group and so far has seen a couple dozen patients use it. ... After a one-year pilot of the crowdfunding service, patients who've used it on average have raised $2,315.
health is not something that can or should be traded on the free market.
America's healthcare system is about as far as you can get from a free market. Patients have no ability to compare prices, or even know what services cost when they are provided. If socialized medicine was the sole answer, America would have a wonderful healthcare system, because our government spends more on healthcare than any other country in the world, and is near the top in per-capita government medical spending as well. Our medical system is bloated, inefficient, and bureaucratic, and at 18% of GDP it is bigger than the entire economy of Canada. If our medical system became as efficient and effective as other developed countries, it would wipe out 10% of our economy, and eliminate the jobs of more than 7 million well paid people. There is a huge amount of inertia and resistance to change.