Medical Crowdfunding Recipients

I discussed this survey during Episode 298 of my Beyond Social Media Show podcast.

Podcast Episode Transcript

This is astounding. I found this data from Fast Company‘s Kristin Toussaint, who reports that there’s an AmericaSpeak Spotlight on Health survey done by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago and they have done one on crowdfunding of medical bills.

So nationally, there’s a nationally-representative sample of 1020 people across the country that they surveyed.

And one in five say they or someone in their household have contributed to a crowdfunding campaign to pay for someone else’s medical bills or treatments.

Eight million–an estimated eight million–Americans started a crowdfunding campaign to pay for medical expenses for themselves or someone in their household.

Twelve million Americans started a campaign for someone else.

And for approximately fifteen million Americans who have helped others by donating to these campaigns, 46% of them donated to a friend’s campaign; 61% donated to a relative, co-worker, or acquaintance; and more than a third donated to someone they did not know personally.

Finally, 60% said that the government should be responsible for paying the health care of those who can’t afford it. So fascinating and kind of depressing numbers