Crowdfunding isn’t going to replace health insurance any time soon.
So says a new study published Monday in the medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
In an analysis of over 1,000 GoFundMe pages from October 2018, researchers found that campaigns to help cancer patients with their expenses set an average goal of $20,000 — but only made about $5,000, CNN reports. (With GoFundMe’s setup, people still receive the funds they raise even if they don’t meet their goal.)
But, some have had serious success with the platform, including the 5-year-old who was flung from the third-floor balcony at the Mall of America and sustained life-threatening injuries in April. A GoFundMe campaign for him raised $320,000. In June 2019, it was reported that a cancer patient given six months to live had raised $27,000 to pay for her own funeral.