Watsi uses crowdfunding to provide healthcare, but are patients better off?
No matter what good you do, someone will go out of their way to find the bad in it.<p>Are Doctors Without Borders also all collectively suffering &quot;white guilt&quot;? Project Smile? Are they crippling societies by not forcing the people in those societies to suffer more in the name of commanding other governments to bootstrap themselves? And while we&#x27;re casting aspersions about for ulterior motives, how grossly western is it to expect other governments to just adopt ideals like universal health care?<p>&gt; I clicked on the link, not really sure what to expect given the tone of the introduction. I soon found myself on the shiny, Squarespace-y landing page of Watsi, a San Francisco-based startup closely linked to the accelerator Y Combinator.<p>&quot;...and I was secretly glad, because I knew I&#x27;d found something to fuel my simmering outrage, and I could write about it and maybe get some attention for myself.&quot;<p>&gt; A few moments later, charitably-minded voyeurs can flick through photos of her and hundreds of other desperate looking men, women, and children from around the world and play God — i.e., fund the saddest case they can find and feel good about themselves.<p>&quot;A few moments later, charitable people can be easily connected to someone to help. No, wait, that doesn&#x27;t sound very bad. Hmm. Charitable people can just pick the case that&#x27;s closest to being fully funded. No, that&#x27;s not that bad either. Okay, what words can I cram in here to make this sound really bad? Where did I leave my thesaurus?&quot;<p>&gt; If Watsi donors are paying for the healthcare of individuals in developing countries, what incentive do those developing country governments have to build functioning health systems?<p>Because clearly the only thing stopping these countries from taking care of their own citizens is Watsi.<p>&gt; Getting individual donors to pay for care does not help address the structural barriers that exclude many poor people from accessing health services.<p>&quot;I hate everything Watsi stands for, and especially that they aren&#x27;t doing more of it.&quot;<p>&gt;  In its current state, the model seems to exist more to alleviate “white guilt” than to increase access to care.<p>&quot;I suffer from a cynicism that is so deep and hopelessly dark that I find it impossible to imagine anyone doing anything unless they&#x27;re motivated by the guilt I imagine they should feel for the color of their skin.&quot;<p>&gt; Our goal is to ensure that even if the project fails, patients are better off than if it didn’t exist…. We’re working closely with the local community, government, and providers that collectively have many, many years of experience to design the system and adhere to all local laws in such a way that no matter what, patients will benefit.<p>&gt; Are the bolded words above making anyone else nervous? Or is it just me?<p>&quot;Damn. That&#x27;s a pretty good reply. I&#x27;ve ... I&#x27;ve really got nothing to argue with here. I&#x27;ll appeal to a vague sense of unease.&quot;<p>&gt; ...allow me to offer a few suggestions:<p>&quot;Knowing absolutely nothing about their experimental programs, I am going to make a few vacuous suggestions backed by absolutely no mention of expertise in this field.&quot;<p>&gt; Healthcare is a human right, and should not be granted based on an individual’s state of relative piteousness. No more photos, no more sob stories. Pool donor donations and allocate randomly among the patients.<p>&quot;I would sooner insist that Watsi throw away everything that allows them to help a few people, and adopt instead my totally untested opinion which will destroy everything that makes Watsi unique and in all likelihood cause them to go the way of every other faceless organization begging people for money.&quot;<p>&gt; That means working with governments and Ministries of Health to find the most effective and appropriate means (e.g. social insurance, sin taxes, etc.) for them to raise sufficient funds to provide universal healthcare for their population so you don’t have to.<p>&quot;I really really hope nobody notices that just a moment ago I was accusing them of being short-sighted for trying to reduce the overhead costs of health care. If that worked, the need for funds would be reduced.&quot;<p>--<p>I hate this article. I viscerally hate it. &quot;Cee Cee Elle&quot; claims to be a &quot;public health professional&quot;, but this thing she wrote is completely devoid of any substance at all, any concrete or constructive criticism, anything stated from experience or expertise, and it&#x27;s so <i>transparent</i> in the way it tries one self-righteous insult after another, just to see if any of them might stick. That&#x27;s the thing that really grates: not that it&#x27;s a criticism of Watsi, but that it&#x27;s a stupid criticism of Watsi.