Is Crowdfunding the Future of Lowering Healthcare Costs

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services released a report touting the national uninsured rate reached an all-time low of 8% with only 26.4 million Americans still lacking coverage. This sounds like good news, but a deeper dive shows an enormous shift from private to taxpayer-funded government-subsidized coverage that has a lackluster history of containing health spending and delivering good health outcomes.

Thanks to the pandemic and the American Rescue Plan Act, Medicaid enrollment surged with 24 million new enrollees as states have not been able to remove individuals that no longer qualify, and another two million opted into ObamaCare exchange plans.

It is important to remember that having an insurance card is not the same thing as having access to care. And the incentives for traditional health insurance plans are not set to lower the cost of healthcare in the long run. As a result, innovative companies are emerging that are introducing new ways to both contain healthcare spending and also ensure positive outcomes.

America needs to encourage patients to be smart healthcare consumers. We need communities that leverage their combined consumer power to get better deals. Crowdfunding offers a potential solution that can do just that.

Read the full commentary at Forbes.