What a beautiful thing it is for basically an entire university to come together to raise money for children with pediatric cancer. In case you’ve been living under a rock here at UK, DanceBlue brings in a plethora of college students from so many different organizations on campus to come together for a 24-hour dance marathon, raising money for the kids, once a year.

This organization has pulled in millions of dollars over just the past couple of years and their mission includes building a new Hematology/Oncology Clinic for children.

While this philanthropic event is an amazing effort to be involved in for students, there seems to be a few discrepancies with the concept of raising money for children whose lives are at risk: healthcare issues.

The annual effort of raising money for hospitals to be built and for sick children to be healed simply supports the grotesque grip of expensive health care on American society. If we had better health care, would it be necessary to have a dance marathon to raise money? No, but that’s the issue.

The fact that most dance marathons exist to temporarily help systematic issues instead of supplementing an already good health system is ignoring the more daunting situation of so many families struggling to pay for cancer treatments each year.

An effort to put up these philanthropic events to raise impressive amounts of money for health systems refuses to acknowledge the situation our nation is really in: Some treatments in the U.S. cost about $30,000 a month. Insurance does slightly help, but barely aids this huge financial burden over time.

So, this weekend, when you are on those floors dancing and trying to stay energized, try to remember this: Although what you are doing is helpful, it is temporary. We need to permanently help the families with this financial and emotional burden not only by looking to raise awareness and philanthropic funds but also by striving to help the lack of sufficient health care in America.