The family of retired Olympian gymnast Mary Lou Retton turned to crowdfunding to cover her hospital expenses for a rare pneumonia, noting that the sports icon is uninsured.
Ms. Retton, who was the first American woman to win the all-around gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics, has been hospitalized in an ICU for more than a week with "a very rare form of pneumonia," according to her daughter, McKenna Kelley.
On the crowdfunding page she created Oct. 10, Ms. Kelley refrained from sharing details of her mother's medical episode, but did say that Ms. Retton, 55, is uninsured. The family set out to raise $50,000 for Ms. Retton's care costs. By the morning of Oct. 13, the campaign had received more than $399,000 in donations. The top donor contributed $50,000, meeting the campaign goal immediately.
Crowdfunding for medical and hospital expenses has proliferated over the past decade and a half. More than one quarter of GoFundMe campaigns between 2010 and 2018 were devoted to cover healthcare costs, collectively seeking upwards of $10 billion, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2021.
Further analysis of crowdfunding efficacy shows split results, however. Out of 165,000 pandemic-related campaigns from March to August 2020 — to cover healthcare, funeral services, groceries and other needs — more than four in 10 received no donations at all and the typical charity drive collected just $65, according to a study from researchers with University of Washington.