The other day, I was mindlessly scrolling through Facebook when I saw a post titled, “Young boy saves his allowance to pay for his class’ lunch debt.” My first thought, like many other people’s, was that this was a feel-good story and just what I needed to de-stress from work. 

Then I thought about it. Why does this kid have to spend his allowance so his classmates have the basic rights to food at school? Why isn’t the school doing more to prevent this lunch debt? And why isn’t the state stepping in to provide food and support for children? 

We’ve all seen these “feel-good” stories while either scrolling through social media or watching  our local news stations. I’m all for being supportive of each other, and being kind — if anything, we need more of that these days — but this isn’t it. 

The natural consequences of these stories going viral is costing us in policy changes.

The GoFundMe link or even local fundraisers we see the most is financial support for those diagnosed with cancer. Although it may feel good to help pay for someone in your communities’ chemotherapy, why are we not questioning why we must do this for people? Lifesaving cancer treatment, drugs, and even checkups at doctors are costing us so much in America that we must band together to allow people to live. 

I no longer want to see people begging to survive and hoping their story is heartbreaking enough to go viral and get funded. So many people are sitting at home rationing their medications or not going to their doctors’ appointments due to being unable to pay, and it’s costing people’s lives. 

Without pushing our representatives to make policy changes, we are going to continue seeing stories of young kids having to spend their allowance so that their fellow classmates can eat, or people unable to pay for lifesaving treatments and medications and having to turn to GoFundMe for support. We quickly see these stories become scapegoats for why healthcare policies aren’t being passed. If we can support each other, why do they need to spend money on passing a bill for affordable cancer treatment or even healthcare?

The answer is: they don’t. Big Pharmacy and hospitals can continue to raise prices on medications and treatments because there are no policies to cap them. Insurances can pick and choose what they want to cover because as of right now it’s a privilege to have affordable health care and if you don’t you better hope your GoFundMe story pulls heartstrings and goes viral if it could be your life in danger. 

Speaking to your local representatives can be just as easy as pushing the green donate button. You can find out how to register to vote in your state here and find out who your senators and representatives are here. Give them a call in support of making necessary policy changes so we don’t need GoFundMe to survive.