Buffistas, I have a a problem I'm wrestling with and I was hoping for some hivemind wisdom. Last year, I reconnected with an old friend from college. She is in her late 50s and founded a small company in her 30s which allows her to travel and so she leads a very peripatetic life--I see her when she's in L.A.

She just discovered she had cancer (stage 1, luckily) and needs a hysterectomy. She doesn't have insurance and has asked her friends to donate to cover the cost--she suggested $1,000 per person. This weirds me out a little. Partly, I guess, because I have been tied down to a corporate job for 10 years, mostly for the insurance. Partly because I have seen her maybe 6 times in the last two years--although they were six really nice times.

I don't think she's pulling a scam or anything--she's very honest. We could scrape together the money, I think, but the DH is pretty strongly against it. I don't know. I'm really struggling with this.

She doesn't have insurance and has asked her friends to donate to cover the cost--she suggested $1,000 per person.

Uh, no. I think it's one thing to ask for help, and another thing to "suggest" a donation level. It makes it sound like public radio, not a friendship.

Scrappy, no. Donate some money if you can spare it and you want to, just don't feel like you have to come up with money you really don't have. I'm all for people pooling their resources to help each other out, but she shouldn't tell you how much to give.

Oh Scrappy. I understand wanting to help, but $1000? That's a lot of money. Offer to help out however you and your DH feel comfortable doing so: giving her a smaller amount of money, offering meals, or whatever she needs while being treated.

I know I don't have to say this to you guys, but the US healthcare system baffles and scares me.

I'd be uncomfortable too. It's one thing to hear about a fundraiser to help cover the medical costs for someone, but it's another to hear directly that people should donate X amount of money.

agreed with all of the above.

it might help her more - if you are up for it - to find some resources to cover medical costs. It can't be that she has to come up with the cash. there has to be other options.

Yeah, I'm down with people asking for help, but $1000? That's a little odd. If people donate, she should be grateful and appreciative no matter the cost of the donation.

Based on my pre-insurance hyst costs, it should run about $7K-ish. I mean, unless her friends are all well-heeled.

I am sorry that your friend has been in business for 20 years and wasn't responsible enough to get some kind of health insurance, but that doesn't make it the responsibility of her friends. Her doctor and hospital will have options for her to consider.

This is a subject on which I tend to be judgy. Since I left the corporate world in '98, my top two budget priorities have been the mortgage and health insurance. I knew I had to have health insurance, because I am not a lucky person. Yes, it was a big part of my budget. I know there are a lot of people out there who really can't afford the premiums and people who are uninsurable who decide to take the risk of leaving a corporate job. I also see a lot of freelancers who could have afforded health insurance but their priorities were elsewhere. I don't know her whole story, but it sounds like she chose a life she enjoyed, but now feels entitled to have other people pay for it.

I'll admit I've had fantasies about coming up with some kind of clever "Help Ginger pay her ridiculous deductible and make the credit card people go away" website, but I can't imagine asking my friends. Hell, it almost killed me to ask my mother.