Begging For Health Care Is The New Safety Net

Paying for health care is now a popularity contest.

- Stephen Marche

Two days after receiving a diagnosis of stage 4 breast cancer, Marisa Rahdar had to figure out how to beg for her life. “I didn’t want to do it at all,” she recalls. Rahdar is a 32-year-old bartender from Detroit, and she has insurance. Her brother, Dante, the one in the family who’s good with numbers, worked out the amount she’d need to cover her out-of-pocket medical expenses and take a break from serving beer so she could rest up after chemotherapy. The number he came up with was $25,000. Next came the pitch. That job fell to Dante, too. He chose YouCaring.com, rather than another crowdfunding site, because he’d recently seen a campaign posted on GoFundMe.com by a guy trying to raise money for potato salad; he didn’t want to post his sister’s suffering beside practical jokes. The pitch was brief:

My sister, Marisa Rahdar, was diagnosed with breast cancer on March 16 th of 2017. Through the testing phase she has also been diagnosed with cancer located in her lymph nodes and tailbone. This upcoming week she will begin radiation and meet with her team of doctors at Troy Beaumont to finalize a plan of action for her treatment. In the meantime, we have estimated her medical expenses not covered by her insurance, as well as her living expenses during the time of her treatment. We will update this site during her treatment so you can all get a small sample of that famous Marisa “charm.” For those concerned, her eyebrows remain unsullied.