If you own a television, there's a good chance you've seen commercials for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Its ads feature well-known celebrities like Sofia Vergara and Jennifer Aniston. It fundraises on this promise: "Families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food — because all a family should worry about is helping their child live."
A new investigation from ProPublica investigates that claim, a statement which helps the charity out-raise any other hospital of its type:
Last year, St. Jude raised a record $2 billion. U.S. News & World Report ranked it the country's 10th-best children's cancer hospital, and St. Jude raised roughly as much as the nine hospitals ahead of it put together. It currently has $5.2 billion in reserves, a sum large enough to run the institution at current levels for the next four and a half years without a single additional donation.
Reporters David Armstrong and Ryan Gabrielson found that while families don't pay for care, they often are buried under other types of financial strain.
David Armstrong and Joe McDonough join us for the conversation.
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