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Giving Compass' Take:
• Gina Martinez reports that more than one-third of donations on GoFundMe cover medical costs, highlighting the healthcare cost crisis in the United States.
• How can funders work to increase healthcare assessability and lower costs at scale?
• Learn how health information exchanges help drive down medical costs.
One-third of all donations on the popular fundraising site GoFundMe goes towards health care costs, the company’s CEO told CBS News.
Founded in 2010, GoFundMe helps users create fundraisers for dozens of categories, including education, faith and business. Nearly 250,000 campaigns have been set up through the site to help pay for health care costs, raising $650 million in contributions, according to the company’s website.
One possible reason for the rising demand in crowdfunding health care costs could be the drop in health insurance coverage in recent years.
According to a new report from Gallup, uninsured rates in the U.S. have reached a four-year high, with nearly 13.7% adults in the U.S. reporting they are uninsured. Coverage is at its lowest since the Affordable Care Act’s individual health insurance mandate was put into effect in 2014, Gallup said. According to the report, about seven million more adults are without health insurance since the number started rising in 2016.
Read the full article about crowdfunding to cover medical costs by Gina Martinez at TIME Magazine.