Paying for Health: Give Forward

At Lindzonpalooza this past weekend in Coronado, CA, a handful of companies (varying in stage, though most very early) presented to friends, and potential investors. Give Forward stood out in an interesting way for me. Simply put, they're crowdsourced healthcare financing. They've been at it for awhile, and are doing great.

During the Q&A session Yoni Assia asked an intriguing, upsetting, magical, and innovative question (paraphrasing): "what if I could setup a monthly subscription to the service, and if/when I need the service myself, it covers my healthcare bills for me? kind of like insurance."

Great question, and on the surface it seems like it would work. What upset me about the question is that I was intrigued by it, even though I already shell out untold sums of money every year to "cover my health" yet I'm obviously displeased with the current model to the point that I'd gladly subscribe to the additional service Yoni was proposing. It was yet another moment of realization around how bad healthcare has gotten.

Intriguing to think that Give Forward may actually be solving the healthcare financial mess by simply circumventing the money part of it altogether.

It was also disturbing to hear that the healthcare companies themselves are considering getting into Give Forward's game. Chew on that circular reference for awhile and see how it tastes.

What GF's done is awesome. An incredible story of passionate caring in a for-profit model wherein everybody wins. Evidence that we, the entrepreneurs, will indeed find a way around the broken massive industries that have plagued and sucked the system dry in so many ways.