The People GoFundMe Leaves Behind (theoutline.com) 242
citadrianne shares a report from The Outline: President Donald Trump's proposed budget seeks to slash $54 billion from social services including programs like Medicaid and Meals on Wheels. As these resources dry up, crowdfunding websites will further entrench themselves as extra-governmental welfare providers in order to fill the gap. For a lucky few, these sites are a lifeline. For most people, they are worthless. Crowdfunding's fatal flaw is that not every campaign ends up getting the money it needs. A recent study published in the journal Social Science & Medicine found that more than 90 percent of GoFundMe campaigns never meet their goal. For every crowdfunding success story, there are hundreds of failures. "As many happy stories as there are in charitable crowdfunding, there are a lot of really worthy causes when you browse these platforms that nobody has given a cent to," Rob Gleasure, professor at the business school of the National University of Ireland, Cork told The Outline. "People haven't come across them."
Feller and Gleasure's report highlighted how fickle crowdfunding can be. Of all the Razoo campaigns started in 2013, they found, more than a third didn't receive any funding at all. According to their report, donors are more likely to give to campaigns that feature lots of pictures and accompanying text.
I'm going to autofund me some popcorn (Score:2, Flamebait)
I'm going to autofund me some popcorn and wait for roman_mir and all the usual suspects to enthrall us with their wisdom.
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I should imagine they'd be fine with the idea, as it is choice and not forced by way of government?
The idea being that one can opt to be charitable.
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The amusing bit is their ranting and raving about anything remotely government related and acting like they forged the very sun that warms them and the earth they walk on by the sheer force of their own wills.
It's as if not being born in the projects, let alone Somalia, was somehow their achievement.
Contradiction (Score:3, Insightful)
> A recent study published in the journal Social Science & Medicine found that more than 90 percent of GoFundMe campaigns never meet their goal. For every crowdfunding success story, there are hundreds of failures.
No, assuming you are focused on GoFundMe and the study is accurate, then for every crowdfunding success story, there are tens of failures.
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If you're going to be pedantic, at least do it right.
Exactly 90% failure rate would mean that there are nine failures per success, not tens of failures per success.
More than 90% does not preclude tens of failures per success, but it doesn't preclude hundreds of failure per success either.
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You're assuming that reaching your funding goal is the full definition of success.
Disappointed (Score:4, Funny)
I'm disappointed that you didn't lead with a Trump angle on the previous Sci-Hub piracy article. It's like you didn't even try. This one was better.
Math is hard (Score:5, Insightful)
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They used a log scale, or something like that.
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C-reamer, it's really time you stopped.
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a) MORE than 90%
b) Meeting funding goal is a necessary but not sufficient criterion for success.
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a) I get. It's crap writing, because "more than 90" means everything from 90 + one RCH (fail ratio 90 / 10 = 9:1) to 99.99 (fail ratio 99.99 / 0.01 = 9999:1). I guess having a K - X on the bottom is what makes it so nonlinear.
b) I thought getting funded was the point? But if it isn't that's also crap writing, because it makes it seem like they're almost the same thing.
90% don't get funded? That's a good thing. (Score:5, Informative)
I assume that the mentality of the person who did the study was to compare it to conventional non-profits and the way they do fundraising. This is an important distinction because, under that model, there's a certain filtering process. If you've ever looked at a grant application, you'll see that the very nature of any of them tends to point out to you that there needs to be a valid reason for your request for funding. GoFundMe has no such filter, and as a result you get people like these three assholes [gofundme.com] or this snowflake [gofundme.com]. And those two are just what I came across by searching "Nintendo" on their site and seeing what came up in the first full set of results.
And then there's the other thing that the filtering process does...which is help reduce the level of scamming. GoFundMe also lacks any means to do this; you see a picture and a nice bit of text but there is absolutely nothing done to validate that either are true. As a result, scams are rampant, to such a degree that there's a whole site [gofraudme.com] dedicated to uncovering the scams.
So, in short...I don't think there's anything wrong with the majority of GoFundMe campaigns failing to reach their goals. Most of them are just fucking ridiculous. And yes, I'm quite sure that some valid campaigns don't get funded as well...but 1, I would put some of the blame on the lack of any vetting process around the campaigns, and 2, that happens in the world of legitimate fundraising too. Posting a picture and type a few paragraphs describing your plight does not automatically guarantee you money...whether you are deserving or not...and that's just how life goes.
And I assume you didn't read the study (Score:3)
Re:And I assume you didn't read the study (Score:5, Insightful)
they already took out the folks just randomly asking for money. It's 90% of _medical_ campaigns that fail. But hey, you're uninformed rant probably made you feel better about not providing those 90% with life saving medical care and food/shelter while they're too sick to work, right?
The folks just randomly asking for money are part of the problem, even if you remove them from the study. I found out about them when I went to GoFundMe to give money to a valid cause. A person was injured while volunteering for an event that I was attending (which has a close-knit community) and was injured by an accident. Having a broken ankle and no medical insurance, he put up a GoFundMe to ask for help; it was a textbook example of what the site *should* be used for. I went there, and donated...and then in the course of that I saw just how much insanity there is. It definitely put me off...it didn't dissuade me from donating that time, because I knew about the person involved, knew what happened (I even saw them bringing him to the ambulance), and knew that it was 100% valid. But I also realized that there was absolutely no way to validate any of the other campaigns without that kind of personal connection. My rant is an indictment of GoFundMe in general, because we're talking about the model as a whole.
Which brings me to the issue that I raised but you didn't address: scams. There are tons of scams in GoFundMe, and while some (like those that use stock art for photos) can be uncovered relatively easily with a bit of detective work, I'm willing to be that there is a significant group that are less obvious. How does the study account for them? Looking through the GoFraudMe (I bet you didn't go there, Mr. "Uninformed Rant") site, you'll note that the majority of scams fall within the exact kind of funding campaigns that are the study's focus. And that comes full-circle to my point about funding methods that have some form of due diligence behind them. Yes, I know, you can't start up a non-profit agency just to get your medical bills covered...but there are many non-profit agencies that gather funds en masse and then dole them out for cases like these.
But let's not stop there. Let's put aside the scams, the fact that the whole model is fundamentally broken in that it begs abuse by people who feel entitled to game consoles and whatnot. Let's also include the fact that a significant number of the "medical" campaigns are for things like breast enhancement or bariatric surgery. Or this gem, which has exceeded it's $8,000 goal for hip surgery for a dog...but when I did a Google Image search of the picture, it turns out that the dog pictured belonged to Justin Bieber. How much searching did that take? I typed "surgery" into the search field on GoFundMe, hit return, picked the first item on the first page of results that had a picture rather than a video, and did an image search on the picture. What are the odds of that turning out to be a sign of a scam, if the vast majority of "surgery"-related campaigns are valid? And this case combines both the "this request is bullshit" and "this campaign is a scam" dimensions at the same time.
So...follow the pathway of a person visiting GoFundMe, going for a totally valid reason about which they have no doubts. Add the shocking, rampant, obvious snowflakery and the subsequent discovery of large-scale scamming that goes into the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars per campaign. What do you think a potential donor is going to do? I think they'll do what I do...only give money to people they know, or give it to 501(c)(3) organizations because both cases involve a lot lower risk of the money going to a scumbag instead of a person who is deserving.
Oh, and in closing...fuck you very much for accusing that I actively deny medical care, food, and shelter to sick people and that I seek solace for trampling upon the poor. You don't know me, or anything about me, and I would bet a year's pay that I donate more to charitable causes than you do. Once you start donating money in a significant way, you start learning that not all causes are alike...and you learn to make good choices so that your donations will actually matter.
Re:And I assume you didn't read the study (Score:5, Insightful)
Once you start donating money in a significant way, you start learning that not all causes are alike...and you learn to make good choices so that your donations will actually matter.
Wouldn't it be great if there was some sort of clearing house that handled your "donations" and made sure they were applied correctly, to people who really need them for medical expenses.
Even better if the overhead was lower then any other comparable system.
We could call it Medicare, or something like that.
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Once you start donating money in a significant way, you start learning that not all causes are alike...and you learn to make good choices so that your donations will actually matter.
Wouldn't it be great if there was some sort of clearing house that handled your "donations" and made sure they were applied correctly, to people who really need them for medical expenses.
Even better if the overhead was lower then any other comparable system.
We could call it Medicare, or something like that.
Excellent point...and actually, it's been tried, with mixed success, on a broader scale rather than just medical-expense-related charitable giving. One approach...the United Way...has worked decently though they have had some scandals of their own. Another is the US Federal Government's "Combined Federal Campaign," which kind of serves as a clearing house and also seeks to avoid some other problems as well (like how supervisors used to pressure their subordinates to donate to certain charities.)
I think it
The problem isn't folks asking for money (Score:2)
And I know this: Charity doesn't work. In the entire recorded history of mankind charity has never made so much as a dent in the poor's lot. Charity makes people feel better. It does not solve problems. If it did poverty wouldn't be a thing, and folks wouldn't be begging for medicine on a website.
GoFundMe isn't the problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that so many people need money because the cost of medical care is beyond their reach. The problem is that we live in a society where the ability to continue living is something that you have to "earn". The problem is that so many people are callous and devoid of empathy until it turns into a problem for them. The problem is that we refuse to care for our fellow humans.
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I'm not sure everyone who supports reduced government benefits feels that others should not be cared for... The vast majority, perhaps, but some seem to genuinely think that charity and altruism should do the job instead of government.
The problem with that is, as this article shows, that funding them becomes uneven and some people are ignored. Really the only new thing here is that it's happening "on the internet". Are we supposed to be surprised that human nature is the same online as offline?
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Re:GoFundMe isn't the problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
Fortunately church "charities" are still able to use the old "convert or die" system in Africa. It's so sad that it's getting harder in the west for churches and the wealthy to control and exploit people in exchange for generously offering them a chance to live.
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You're free to start your own charity if you don't like the way churches operate theirs.
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The problem is that, in altogether too many cases, "charity" is not altruism at all. Instead, it is a thinly veiled canard disguising the promulgation of ideology. The Salvation Army, for example, would prefer that transgendered people freeze to death in the streets [wikipedia.org] over offering them so much as a warm place to not die for eight hours. And that's just the most notorious of a number of ideological attacks on their part [lgbtqnation.com] that have nothing to do with charitable works or helping anybody.
So, while government i
FTFY Re:GoFundMe isn't the problem. (Score:2, Insightful)
FTFY
The problem is that so many people need money because the cost of medical care is beyond their reach. The problem is that we live in a country where the ability to continue living is something that you have to "earn". The problem is that so many people are callous and devoid of empathy until it turns into a problem for them. The problem is that we refuse to care for our fellow citizens.
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That's a lot of idle complaining, but no one has offered a workable plan to reduce health costs.
No country has reduced health care costs over time [bloomberg.com].
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By the way, the point isn't necessarily to reduce costs, though that would be a nice bonus. The point is to make sure everyone has health care, including routine preventative care, something man
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...profit...advertising...wasted money.
Advertising helps drug and device companies make a profit. They develop new treatments for profits. New treatments save lives and reduce suffering.
I know people in that industry. They don't work for free.
By the way, the point isn't necessarily to reduce costs, though that would be a nice bonus. The point is to make sure everyone has health care, including routine preventative care, something many poorer people don't do because they can't afford it. The upshot is that problems that otherwise either would have been preventable or caught early and treated for a lot less expense turn into serious conditions are are a lot more expensive to treat --- or the people either live in misery or outright die.
This was studied. Health coverage doesn't significantly impact health. [bloomberg.com]
It's logical to believe that it might, but the study says it doesn't.
And preventive care coverage doesn't cut emergency room use [bloomberg.com] either.
Lots of people wish there were straightforward answers. Wishing does make it true.
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So? I never said anything about such companies. I'm talking only about private insurance companies. If the government provided all health care, there would be no need for private health insurance companies.
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Government agencies aren't known for controlling overhead costs.
"Give up any choice you have over your health coverage because ... advertising costs" isn't a great message. I don't think you can get people to vote for that.
Re:GoFundMe isn't the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
Government agencies aren't known for controlling overhead costs.
Well, we could perhaps look at some studies, instead of relying on simplistic Republican slogans.
This study [nih.gov] calculates the overhead due to billing and insurance-related costs to 375 billion dollars annually; if Medicare was universal, the savings would be enough to cover all the uninsured and improve coverage for the under-insured. The overhead cost of Medicare is estimated to 1.5% in the USA, 1.8% in Canada. By contrast, the overhead of private insurance companies is about 13% in the USA, 16% in Canada.
Even leaving this aside, there is a much more important issue here. The whole debate is about the wrong thing. The goal of a health care system is not to make money. It is to improve health. Lawmakers' focus should not be on finding ways to protect the income of insurance companies. They should try to find ways to improve the health of citizens. Whether insurance companies go bankrupt, need to change their business model or stop making ridiculous profits should be totally irrelevant. I believe lawmakers who instead perpetuate the current system are fundamentally betraying the reason they were put there in the first place.
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...the overhead of private insurance companies is about 13% in the USA.
And that's 2 or 3 years worth of inflation in health care. Do you think you can get voters to give up all their choices for a 3 year interruption in cost increases?
The goal of a health care system is not to make money. It is to improve health.
Individuals don't care about the "health care system" and are only vaguely interested in aggregate metrics of health. Individuals want choices for themselves and their family, regardless of whether that meets someone's academic policy goals. They're not willing to have their care redistributed by government edict.
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...the overhead of private insurance companies is about 13% in the USA.
And that's 2 or 3 years worth of inflation in health care. Do you think you can get voters to give up all their choices for a 3 year interruption in cost increases?
I'm not sure I'm parsing your response correctly, but are you saying that the high overhead of 13% doesn't matter, because the low overhead solution will get to the same price in three years due to inflation? That makes no sense whatsoever.
Or are you saying that people should be ok with paying more, because they get "choices", whatever those are? Obviously you bought into the Republican propaganda - "choices" are another one of the Republicans' talk points, and, like most others, just a distraction. If peo
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The US spends twice as much on healthcare as comparable economies for similar outcomes. Is that inevitable and if so, why?
Read the linked articles. It wasn't inevitable if we'd spent the last 70 years keeping costs from rising. The only thing we need to do to avoid it is to go back in time 70 years and then make different choices through time up to now.
No country has gone from high costs to lower costs over time. Certainly not the U.K.
Tell us your plan for us to go from high costs to lower costs. If anyone (e.g. health care workers) loses out significantly in your plan, please include why you think you would be able to win
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That's a lot of idle complaining, but no one has offered a workable plan to reduce health costs.
The problem isn't actually the cost of healthcare, the problem is the sheer amount of wasted funds by congressmen trying to get re-elected. We don't need to be spending a trillion dollars a year on defense when we don't even have a real enemy. We should be removing ourselves from the middle east because there was never a real reason to be there, only a farce.
Re:GoFundMe isn't the problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
We don't need to be spending a trillion dollars a year on defense when we don't even have a real enemy.
We don't. It's actually closer to half that much. But I agree it should be cut, along with more-or-less every other government expenditure.
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along with more-or-less every other government expenditure.
That's stupid.
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It's wise and enlightened and principled. Every program is someone's favorite program. If people want their favorite program increased and only want cuts in non-favorite programs, then government grows without limits. If you don't want government to consume everything and be in total control of everything everyone does (with someone like Trump or Hillary in charge) you have to be willing to cut stuff you like.
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It's wise and enlightened and principled.
You should add humble to that list. -_-
Every program is someone's favorite program. If people want their favorite program increased and only want cuts in non-favorite programs, then government grows without limits.
"along with more-or-less every other government expenditure." != "prevent uncontrolled growth"
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You should add humble to that list. -_-
Yeah, also humble -- because I don't think my favorite programs should rule over everyone else's and increase while everyone else's favorites should lose out and get cut.
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you must be going blind because you missed this part:
"along with more-or-less every other government expenditure." != "prevent uncontrolled growth"
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you must be going blind because you missed this part:
I disagree with that part.
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Yeah, I'm sure you enjoy alternative facts when the truth ruins your false narrative.
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Obviously entire countries, including a big one bordering the U.S., have solved this problem long ago.
Yeah, the "solution" was to spend the last 60 or 70 years keeping costs from rising too fast. Are you suggesting we go back in time 60 or 70 years and start on that plan?
No country has gone from high costs to lower costs.
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Why shouldn't you have to "earn" what you get?
I don't think we have a pervasive lack of compassion and empathy in our society. I think we've been brainwashed into believing that caring about others should be a mission left to government. A mission at which they fail in the most catastrophic manner.
We're already paying for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, SNAP, housing subsidies, heating subsidies, etc. etc. People see the fraud & abuse of these programs and naturally recoil at the thought of fund
Re:GoFundMe isn't the problem. (Score:4, Informative)
" but not through the wasteful and inefficient institution of government." I am confused by what other manner it can be done.
I caught an unfortunate virus when I was 12. It was not through anything particular that I did.
I have never been able to work, and progressive relapses have taken me from struggling part time through university, to being almost bedbound.
Due to struggling to keep educating myself in hopes of being able to work, and the difficulty of keeping up with a peer group, I am utterly isolated at the moment.
In addition, I live in a rural poor area, with no church or nearby large social organisations.
Precisely who am I supposed to appeal to for support?
Or are you advocating that those without a close family, who have lost friends due to being able to keep up with them, who are not a member of a church or similar organisation should simply die?
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Precisely nowhere that I'm aware of has ever had a non-mandated by government, or directly provided by government reliable safety net for those that does not at best cope with one small social group, and ignore others in equal need.
Perhaps you could describe such a system that has never existed throughout history?
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Why shouldn't you have to "earn" what you get?
I'm just talking about covering people's most basic needs to live. The right to live shouldn't be something that needs to be "earned" and the constitution is on my side with this one.
I don't think we have a pervasive lack of compassion and empathy in our society.
Sure... but nobody thinks they are heartless, they just are. You gave yourself away with the first question.
People see the fraud & abuse of these programs and naturally recoil at the thought of funding more of the same.
Why not just take money out of the equation and provide universal healthcare?
We should get government OUT of the charity business and adopt the attitude that these problems are our collective responsibility, but not through the wasteful and inefficient institution of government.
So want to privatize the police and firefighter protection too? Because they are equal terms as charities as doctors.
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What if we all sat around and did nothing and demanded that our most basic needs be met? I don't think The Constitution gives you the "right" to food, clothing, shelter or anything else that requires the labor of other people.
"Why not just take money out of the equation and provide universal healthcare?"
With a magic wand? Do you expect doctors, nurses, medical device manufacturers, drug developers, etc. etc. to all work without compensation? No, you expect everyone else in society to spend part of their
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What if we all sat around and did nothing and demanded that our most basic needs be met?
Humans are not content to simply sit around. However, considering the manufacturing of food, clothing and shelter can be almost entirely automated, it should be possible to make that happen.
I don't think The Constitution gives you the "right" to food, clothing, shelter or anything else that requires the labor of other people.
That reminds me of something I wrote, "The problem is that so many people are callous and devoid of empathy until it turns into a problem for them."
With a magic wand? Do you expect doctors, nurses, medical device manufacturers, drug developers, etc. etc. to all work without compensation? No, you expect everyone else in society to spend part of their time working without compensation to pay for medical services. You cannot take money/wealth out of the equation.
The point is to minimize fraud. Can people still defraud the system, yes. Does it become significantly more difficult, yes.
"So want to privatize the police and firefighter protection too?"
It's worth considering, but it's not really feasible.
You are dead wrong. It is 100% feasible. Will
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Yes, ultimately, one has to work to survive and even then mostly due to luck, sometimes it's still not enough. This isn't just true of humans, it's true for /every single organism/ on the planet.
I'm not sure how all the empathy in the world changes that very basic fact.
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No, the problem is that morons like you think that the only way of caring for our fellow humans is through huge, ineffective, government-based redistribution. That's why medical care is so astronomically expensive, and it's why so many people are still living in poverty.
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WOW. You obviously don't understand anything about the healthcare system. You sound like some college kid that watches Fox News and doesn't really know about the real world.
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No, the problem is that you don't understand anything about the US healthcare system, which is why you misdiagnose the problem as "Americans refuse to care for our fellow humans."
Half of our medical system is fully government run; the other half is highly regulated and required to provide services to everybody. We have some of the most expensive per capita medical care in the world, yet don't do any better in terms of health than lots of other countries.
It's the same b.s. whether it's education, housing, or
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We have some of the most expensive per capita medical care in the world, yet don't do any better in terms of health than lots of other countries.
But do you know why it's expensive?
People like you are ignorant, and people like you are responsible for the mess that we are in.
That's not even close to correct. The problem is there is a minimally-representative government in power that doesn't work for the people but rather anyone who will fund their campaigns. Our wreck of a healthcare system is a symptom of the real problem, legalized political corruption.
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Have you thought about what that campaign funding is used for? That's right: political advertising trying to convince people to vote for these politicians, because they still need votes to actually get into power.
And what kind of message do you think they want
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And what kind of message do you think they want to spread in order to increase their revenue?
In modern politics, it's private fundraising events where they promise to lower taxes to the rich that get them funding. In addition, it's their actions that get them the funding from the backers of those special interests you mentioned before. I know pharmaceutical companies are always looking to relax regulations but they don't give a shit who pays them because they are still getting paid because nobody says, "hmm... maybe i'll get this cancer treated next year".
people like you are the essential link between big corporate spending, corrupt political candidates, and political power.
Wow that's some serious cognitive dissona
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Of course. That's where the money comes from. You're still not thinking about where the money actually goes.
Answer this question: why do politicians want all this money? What do they do with it? How does it help them to get power?
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Because "fixing" campaign finance would actually make the system more corrupt: it makes politicians even less dependent on the public, it makes it even cheaper for corporations to buy politicians (since all they need to pay for now is personal favors), and it
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Because "fixing" campaign finance would actually make the system more corrupt: it makes politicians even less dependent on the public
That's rich. Since you have made this assertion without consideration to an alternative funding plan, you're implying is that this is the least corrupt form that politics can take. That's astoundingly stupid.
it makes it even cheaper for corporations to buy politicians (since all they need to pay for now is personal favors)
Right because that would be the kind of thing nobody would ever consider prohibiting.
and it gives incumbents an even bigger advantage.
Now this I gotta hear. How could this possibly give incumbents a larger advantage?
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I have not only "considered" alternative funding plans, I have lived in countries that use them.
People have tried those prohibitions and they don't work.
If campaigns can't be financed privately anymore, then they need to get financed publicly a
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Let's just compromise and say that neither one of you understand anything about the healthcare system.
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Well, oh wise one, why don't you give us your explanation, instead of engaging in idle posturing? Why are US health care costs so high?
Gravis Zero says it's because people are insufficiently compassionate.
I say it's because of government price fixing, government regulation, and government-mandated monopolies.
Your theory is... what?
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Most of the people who are against universal healthcare are creationists (who also paradoxically describe themselves as pro-life, but their pro-life stance stops at birth).
'Murican Health Care (Score:2)
Why is it that it seems the most prolific GoFundMes I see on the local news or shared on Facebook are for Medical Care. Shared by people that are firmly against the Government helping do exactly what they're wanting.
In the same breath the see no Irony in saying: "You libs just want to steal my money to pay for people that need it, but please sponsor Grandma's cancer treaments!!!!"
Re:'Murican Health Care (Score:4, Insightful)
Shared by people that are firmly against the Government helping do exactly what they're wanting.
No, they're firmly against being forced, literally at the point of a gun with threat of jail time and having their possessions taken away, to be generous. Liberals LOVE to be generous with other people's money, and even more so when they can make people criminals if they're not generous in exactly the way that obeys their ideology. Asking for help from (and offering help to) like-minded people isn't even remotely the same as being forced on pain of imprisonment to do the same thing, after, of course, also being forced to pay for a huge body of government middle-men and their supporting infrastructure that do exactly nothing towards the actual expense (say, funding a surgery) being met.
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Hey, Scentcone:
Asking for help from (and offering help to) like-minded people isn't even remotely the same as being forced on pain of imprisonment to do the same thing, after, of course, also being forced to pay for a huge body of for-profit middle-men and their supporting infrastructure that do exactly nothing towards the actual expense (say, funding a surgery) being met.
FTFY
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I'll take that over Conservatives, who want to make people criminals for being generous by giving out food and shelter to the homeless
The only people obsessed with punishing charity are the liberals. They can't STAND the idea of someone helping another person without a government employee making six figures (after union dues that fund liberal politicians) playing the middleman. The only places where me feeding a homeless person is a crime are where liberals run the legislatures. Does it physically hurt to get everything so exactly backwards? You sound like a laughably lame Russian propagandist or perhaps Saddam's spokesman. Asserting an
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Everybody pays taxes. Some just don't declare it, but they do pay.
But I don't get any government-provided health care.
But you are entitled. You just have to demand it, and vote for people that will properly implement it, and grandma can get two knees for the price of one, once you deal with all the present day fraud and political corruption that makes everything so expensive.
The economy is more than prosperous enough to trivially pay for it. You just have to make the people with all the capital pay their fa
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You are an American. You are entitled. Make the government serve you instead of the insurance industry. Start with a firmly worded letter, and follow through with your vote if they don't comply with your wishes.
Whatever nonsense there is in this discussion is coming from you. Maybe it's because you choose to believe their lies. I can assure you that you nothing to gain by it. There is no shortage of fundage. It's just all tied up in the stock/derivatives markets and hoarded into offshore deposits. Free it u
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Just having the government do it imposes some fairness.
So, having the government require people to pay tens of thousands a year for insurance they can't use, plus taxes to fund health care to which they are not entitled, while they stare at a $20,000+ deductible before anything they've spend gets them a dime of services from a doctor every year ... that's the imposition of fairness, in your mind? The Democrats weren't the least interested in "fairness" when they rammed through the ACA on a 100% partisan basis, using a months-long campaign of deliberate, purpos
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a months-long open process of discussion
During which Republicans pointed out that the whole thing was unsustainable, and would collapse. Which it's doing right now, even in states were it was embraced by liberal legislatures and executives. And during which, of course, the "discussion" involved Obama and Pelosi and Reid telling bald faced lies, over and over again, about costs and consequences. Deliberate, purposeful lying. For months. And we're now wearing it, with real problems no matter how we approach repairing the damage the Democrats delib
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Why is it that it seems the most prolific GoFundMes I see on the local news or shared on Facebook are for Medical Care. Shared by people that are firmly against the Government helping do exactly what they're wanting.
In the same breath the see no Irony in saying: "You libs just want to steal my money to pay for people that need it, but please sponsor Grandma's cancer treaments!!!!"
You must be really stupid to consider that irony - you basically say that "those people" don't want to force others to contribute, they're asking for voluntary contributions. There is no inconsistency in that stance, and in fact it's the morally superior position: They are against forcing you to contribute to their welfare, instead they are asking nicely (and if that doesn't work they aren't proposing to force you to hand your money over).
You have to be a special kind of stupid to consider that wrong.
Seriously, Trump? (Score:2, Interesting)
Bobo's mom? (Score:2)
So, like Bobo then? He's pretty much resorted to begging.
Disgusting (Score:2)
Of course social programs get slashed (Score:2)
"extra-governmental welfare providers" (Score:2)
Article is nonsense (Score:2)
Crowdfunding is not about replacing welfare. It is about funding people that have a worthwhile idea or (as in Patreon) that produce content regularly that enough people want for direct funding, but that for numerous possible reasons the usual sources of funding are not interested in. Crowdfunding is _not_ charity.
Hence crowdfunding does not have any "fatal" flaw here, that is pure hyperbole of the most stupid kind.
In quite a few aspects the US is a third world ... (Score:2)
... country. Healthcare is one of them. That's the plain, simple and painful truth. Crowfunding for healtcare being an option is about as obscene as it gets. Obamacare was the first step. Not the best healthcare system by a long shot, but at least a healthcare system, like every other normal country on the planet. What the Trump administration is doing now by undoing all that is borderline criminal.
I'm so glad I live in Germany. And even though I don't like the way things are going here all that much either
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In this case you're logic sucks. Lets take apart the statements an assume both are true
1. more than 90 percent of GoFundMe campaigns never meet their goal.
2. For every crowdfunding success story, there are hundreds of failures.
for
1. the statement requires the percentage of campaigns that doesn't meet their goals to be > 90%
2. assume hundreds => 200, then percentage of compaign that doesn't meet their goal to be >= 99.5%
So both can be valid.. just you're logic sucks
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I'm glad somebody is, because I'm not.
Re:failure is a feature not a problem (Score:5, Informative)
Failure of a croudsource project is a feature, it indicates the lack of a market so that people don't start a company and commit to expenses when there is not a market for their product.
At least read the summary. This is for crowdfunding the cost of insulin, surgery or chemotherapy, not starting company.
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I.e., fraudulent projects don't get funded.
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Nice troll. Campaign work is not productive work.
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Productive work produces goods or services with economic value.
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If paying some people to break windows and others to fix them prevents them from robbing liquor stores you could argue that it's a net plus to society.
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Why the hate though? Is everyone in your country as much of a jerk as you are, or are you an overachiever?
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Charity makes you feel better (Score:2)
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Let's not forget taxes are taken at the barrel of a gun (you go to jail if you don't pay). Again, I could waste an hour of your time explaining why that's all bunk but it would be plaining to the wrong side of the brain. It wouldn't feel good like those myths do.
Erm, myth? You really do go to jail if you don't pay your taxes. Ultimately, laws are enforced at the point of a gun.
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The people who hate private charity and private donations (and want to replace them with government programs) are progressives, socialists, and Democrats.
Sure, that must be why there were record breaking donations (from progressives) after Trump's election.
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