Published Feb 14, 2024

Charity For Rich People? Why Do Famous People Like Olympian Mary Lou Retton Use GoFundMe For Healthcare Bills— Managing Finances Through Cancer

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Navigating the Cost of Treatment

People all around the globe have taken to GoFundMe to raise money for medical bills, even celebrities.
Medical bills can burden anyone, but if you’re facing enormous health costs, it’s important to understand you’re not alone and there are resources to help you pay your bills and ensure you get the care you need.
You can negotiate payment plans, seek out government assistance programs, or look to advocacy groups.
SurvivorNet offers lists of resources available to you for help paying your health bills.

GoFundMe, a for-profit crowdfunding platform founded about 14 years ago, has been helping people from all over the world obtain financial help for all types of reasons, with one of them being to assist with medical bills. New research suggests that donations made through this platform offer unequal benefits to the rich instead of those in need of more assistance. However, it’s apparent that rising medical costs can be difficult for anyone to deal with, no matter what their status.

It’s certainly incredible how people can come together and use the community-powered fundraising platform to help during a costly health crisis, no matter what type of social and economic classes they may be classified as, including celebrities like “Home Alone” Star Ken Hudson Campbell, former QVC star Antonella Nester, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis who started a Stand With Ukraine fundraiser, and former One Direction Singer Zayn Malik who made a GoFundMe campaign for a 5-year-old brain cancer survivor.

Research titled “Money to Burn – Crowdfunding Wildfire Recovery” and published on January 21, 2024, recently looked into hundreds of people who lost their homes in a 2021 Colorado wildfire found that household with incomes over $150,00 obtained about 28% more money through crowdfunding than those who made less than $75,000.

The study’s authors concluded, “While it is clear that crowdfunded private charity is an increasingly important form of informal disaster insurance, there has been little study of who benefits from it. Conditional on losses, we find that disaster crowdfunding benefits high-income households more than the most vulnerable.

“Moreover, disparities in crowdfunding appear to correlate with disparities in recovery outcomes, all else equal. Higher-income households garner more private charity due to their broader networks of connections as well as the fact that their donors give more on average. We document several personal network advantages, including having more outside advocates and more non-local donors, that contribute to these findings. However, the fact that the same donor tends to give larger amounts to higher-income beneficiaries suggests that a personal networks mechanism is an incomplete explanation.”

Although it may not seem fair if famous people are creating GoFundMe’s for themselves, it’s important to remember that medical bills can be a burden to anyone. But it certainly is wonderful when celebrities create GoFundMe’s to help others in need, ultimately using their popular status or extra money to donate or inspire others to donate to a cause. For example, GoFundMe lists some celebs that have donated to charities as Taylor Swift, Kaitlin Olson and Rob McElhenney, and Ryan Reynolds.

Meanwhile, Elisabeth Rosenthal, a Senior Contributing Editor for KFF Health News, recent wrote a column on how “GoFundMe Has Become a Health Care Utility,” pointing out how a 2020 study found that approximately 200,000 U.S. campaigns were related to medical causes, a whopping 25 times more than the amount of health-related campaigns back in 2011.

Rosenthal explains, “More than 500 current campaigns are dedicated to asking for financial help for treating people, mostly kids, who have spinal muscular atrophy, a neurodegenerative genetic condition. The recently approved gene therapy for young children with the condition, by the drugmaker Novartis, has a price tag of about $2.1 million for the single-dose treatment.”

She added, “In many respects, research shows, GoFundMe tends to perpetuate socioeconomic disparities that already affect medical bills and debt. If you are famous or part of a circle of friends who have money, your crowdfunding campaign is much more likely to succeed than if you are middle-class or poor.

“When the family of the former Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton started a fundraiser on another platform, *spotfund, for her recent stay in the intensive care unit while uninsured, nearly $460,000 in donations quickly poured in.”

Regarding Retton’s recent crowdfunding effort, her daughter McKenna Kelley told USA TODAY Sports how “overwhelmed” she was by the amount of people who donated.

She told the news outlet, “I don’t know if that’s ignorant of us or if that was just sweet. This was not supposed to be a big media thing. … We didn’t even think about what this would turn into.

“It was simply four daughters who felt helpless who wanted to help their mom who knew that this would help take a burden off.”

Even “Walking Dead” star Erik Jensen had taken to GoFundMe amid his battle with stage 4 colorectal cancer. The actor, known for playing Dr. Steven Edwards on the popular AMC television drama, launched a GoFundMe in mid-October to help with medical costs and approximately two weeks later, more than $140,000 had been raised.

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“We are overwhelmed by the show of support from friends, colleagues, and complete strangers who have donated to the GoFundMe my wife set up,” Jensen captioned one of his Instagram posts.

It’s clear anyone can be negatively affected by mounting medical costs, but it’s important to know there is a way to handle them and SurvivorNet has some helpful tips offered below for anyone in need.

The Cost of Cancer: The Basics

One of the first questions many people ask themselves after a diagnosis is, how am I going to pay for cancer treatment? Navigating the payment process can, at times, feel more stressful than the treatment itself.

To help you navigate what can be a particularly stressful and confusing aspect of the cancer experience, SurvivorNet has spoken to doctors, financial experts, and survivors who have been through treatment themselves. They’ve shared their guidance and advice for paying for cancer treatment no matter your financial situation.

Oftentimes, doctors recommend taking time to sort through your finances first and then enlisting the help of a social worker or patient navigator, if possible. These specialists may be employed by the center where you are planning to receive cancer treatment.

“Financial planning in the setting of cancer is the most stressful thing,” Dr. Nina Shah, a hematologist at University of California – San Francisco, tells SurvivorNet.

“It’s right up there with, how long am I going to live? The first thing you have to do is recognize your limitations.”

Dr. Nina Shah explains where to seek help paying for cancer treatment.

Dr. Shah suggests taking stock of your finances and looking for any money that is liquid. Perhaps it was set aside for travel or something similar.

Cancer often affects the whole family. You may end up having to take off work to undergo treatment, and your caregiver whether that’s a spouse, sibling, or friend may need to miss work as well to help you.

Dr. Shah suggests seeking the guidance of a social worker to understand what resources are available to help you cope.

“The best way to … find the resources that are available is to speak with the social worker associated with that [cancer center], because that person usually knows what resources are available and what you can do to access them or apply for them and where you may or may not qualify to receive them,” she says.

Financial Help: Where To Look

When it comes to paying for cancer, there are people specifically designated to help you navigate the process. Social workers and patient navigators often work at cancer centers or hospitals, or other organizations associated with these facilities. These employees can assist people with many aspects of the cancer journey, including navigating medical bills and other finances.

“Patient navigators can function differently at different hospitals,” Dr. Kathie-Ann Joseph, a surgical oncologist at NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, told SurvivorNet.

“We have a really wonderful program at [NYU] where we used lay navigators … that pretty much help newly diagnosed cancer patients through the continuum of care.”

These navigators can meet with patients right after the diagnosis and can also:

Attend appointments
Provide an assessment for next steps of care
Assist with housing, transportation or immigration issues
Help with financial issues
Provide direction on legal issues

“They really will help them get through these barriers that we think could impact their care,” Dr. Joseph added. “Because the goal is we want them to complete their care.”

Dr. Kathie-Ann Joseph explains how patient navigators can help patients.

Financial Resources to Consider

If you’re having difficulty finding resources or answers about how to get help paying for a disease or cancer you are battling, there are a few options you can consider. You can negotiate payment plans, seek out government assistance programs, or look to advocacy groups.

These are a few of the options cancer patients and their loved ones have to get help covering costs associated with treatment (from drug co-pays to travel assistance):

For Help With Treatment Bills

The Cancer Financial Assistance Coalition can direct patients and their families to available local services.
Many treatment centers offer extended payment plans and some may offer temporary payment delays, according to the American Cancer Society.
CancerCare, which connects patients with oncology social workers, may be able to assist with co-pays, transportation, and other costs associated with care.
The HealthWell Foundation may be able to help uninsured patients pay for treatment.
The American Cancer Society may be able to link patients and their families up with local resources (they offer a 24/7 helpline).
The Patient Advocate Foundation (PAF) works with patients and their insurance companies to resolve issues and may provide direct financial support to some patients.
The Patient Access Network Foundation may be able to help with out-of-pocket costs associated with cancer treatment.

The Rising Cost Of Medical Bills

The new study on GoFundMe campaigns makes us think about the rising cost of health bills across the United States, how these enormous bills can cause distress, and how patients are coping with their medical debt.

Paying for Cancer – Find Someone Who Will Advocate For You

Also, a recently published Federal Reserve Survey revealed a portion of Americans decided to skip medical treatment in 2022, as a result of the increase in medical bill costs over the past few years.

“Health insurance is one way that people can pay for routine medical expenses and protect against the financial burden of large, unexpected expenses. In 2022, 91% of adults had health insurance, similar to 2021,” the survey says.

“Those without health insurance were more likely to forgo medical treatment because they couldn’t afford it. Among the uninsured, 42% went without medical treatment because they couldn’t afford it, compared to 26% among the insured.”

The also survey found that 28 percent of adults went without some type of medical care in 2022 due to the high costs, which is up from 24 percent in 2021.

“Dental care was the most frequently skipped, followed by visiting a doctor. Some people also reported skipping prescription medicine, follow-up care, or mental health visits,” the findings state. :The increase in this measure may, in part, reflect consumer responses to inflation as medical care is an area where people can save money by cutting back on spending.”

Additionally, a study published this year in JAMA Network Open, concluded that in 2022, about 1 in 5 adults, ages 65 and older, skipped, took fewer prescribed drugs, delayed buying medications, or took another person’s medicine due to cost concerns.

Drug Price Should be Part of Treatment Decision, Says Cleveland Clinic Expert

“Just over half of all respondents (56.5%) used medication cost-coping strategies. Cost-coping strategies included using a copayment card or coupon (30.4%), asking a physician for lower-cost medications (25.6%), shopping around at pharmacies to get a lower price (25.2%), asking a physician for free samples (17.8%), and buying prescriptions from another country (4.8%),” the study’s findings explain.

“Some respondents reported going without basic needs to afford medication (8.5%) or borrowing money or going into debt (4.8%).”

According to the study’s findings, higher levels of general inflation could be a contributing factor to an increase in “cost-related nonadherence” than earlier years. The study notes that general inflation increased from 1.4 percent in January 2021 to 9.1 percent in June 2022.

Questions to Ask Your Doctor

If you are worried about cancer treatment costs, here are some questions you can ask your doctor to kickstart your way to solutions.

What will my treatment cost?
Will my medical insurance cover my treatment?
How long do you expect my cancer treatment to last?
What options do I have if I can’t afford my medication?
Can you recommend a financial counselor or navigator to talk with?