quarters of the people surveyed had some type of health insurance. More recently, an analysis of western Washington state bankruptcies produced by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and published in the journal Health Affairs in May found that cancer patients age 21 and older were almost three times more likely to go bankrupt than people without cancer. “Although the risk of bankruptcy for cancer patients is relatively low in absolute terms,” the authors wrote, “bankruptcy represents an extreme manifestation of what is probably a larger picture of economic hardship for cancer patients.” Even with insurance, there are deductibles and copays, plus the inevitable costs of having ordinary life upended: transportation, emergency housing, lost paychecks while unable to work. The mounting costs are often paired with uncertainty — how long it will take, whether it will be a full recovery and what kind of ongoing care will be required. In Beeler’s case, the money she’s raising is for getting to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona and living expenses during her time there. Insurance will cover the actual hospital visit, but it’s not clear how long she’ll be there — Mayo has told her to expect “an extended stay.” She and her mom are budgeting for three weeks of food and a hotel room at $89 a night. “I can stay with my grandparents on the weekends,” Beeler says, “but they live so far from the Mayo Clinic, it’s just not
reasonable for me to stay with them the whole time I’m there.”
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aising money is nothing new, but social media and related websites have made personal campaigns more popular and expanded the range of potential donors. Kickstarter, the most well-known crowdfunding site for artists and entrepreneurs, doesn’t allow fundraising for health costs or charity. (Make a documentary about undergoing treatment, on the other hand, and that could qualify.) A number of other platforms have popped up to fill that need, from more all-purpose sites like Indiegogo and GoFundMe to health-specific sites like YouCaring and GiveForward. The team behind FundRazr, the platform Beeler is using, initially expected to see a lot of users setting up campaigns for managing club activities or membership fees, vice president of marketing Bret Conklin says. “Then we saw that people were using it to raise funds for all kinds of things, and health care was one of the key ones,” he says. More than half the money raised through FundRazr is in the Accidents/ Tragedy and Health/Illness categories. Of campaigns that raise at least $200 — less than that usually means the creator never promoted it — the average amount raised is about $1,200. And in the health category, more than a quarter of the money raised comes from complete strangers. “There’s
Alli Beeler’s been from brain biopsies to bracelets to discover a diagnosis. starting to be a community of caring,” Conklin says. Of course, with that generosity comes the possibility of fraud. In one recent instance, a Boise-area couple was arrested on theft charges after planning fundraisers to help pay for their 14-year-old daughter’s leukemia treatment. It turned out their ...continued on next page
Cycling for a toddler’s prosthetics
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n July, after cycling 3,200 miles from Miami to Spokane through heat, wind and quarter-size hail, endurance athlete Hector Picard met the toddler he was riding for: Jameson Davis, who, like Picard, is a double arm amputee. Jameson was born in Spokane in April 2012, with a condition called bilateral trans-radial congenital amputation — both his tiny arms end around the elbow, without forearms or hands. His parents, Jim and Brooke Davis, turned to the community for help earlier this year for help with the $25,000 price tag for his first pair of prosthetics. Right now, insurance covers less than half the cost. They hope insurance may cover as much as 80 percent in the future, but with each
more complex set costing upwards of $100,000, the long-term cost for the Davis family is high — and multiplied, since Jameson will need new prosthetics as he gets older. “He’ll need nine or 10 sets before he’s full grown,” his father says. Picard heard about Jameson through a mutual friend, and he read the blog (davisday2day.wordpress. com) that Jameson’s mother
Hector Picard biked from Miami to Spokane because he knows the feeling.
has been writing since he was born. In 1992, at age 24, Picard lost both his arms after an electrical accident at work. He turned the misfortune into a challenge, and has since become an Ironman triathlete and motivational speaker. He chronicled the journey to Spokane with daily updates, each one ending with a short message addressed to Jameson: “Today I rode my bike so high up, it felt like I could touch the clouds. I’m having a wonderful experience on way to meeting you and your mom and dad.” Picard is a role model for children like Jameson, Jim Davis says, and an inspiration for everyone who has followed along with his trip. “He’s living proof of what can be accomplished,” he says. — LISA WAANANEN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 2013
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