Can you afford to have a baby? Image courtesy of anekoho at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Having a baby in America is meant to be the costliest in the world, and after reading an article from the New York Times I am in agreement. I am not sure how any person can be financially oaky after they have kids, the costs would cripple me and our family here not to mention many others.
Why is it so expensive and why is it that America does not have a system like Medicare in Australia?
One woman in the article was told that she would pay in the range of, $4,000 – $45,000 to have her baby. Why such a big range? Why does it cost so much?
In the article it also states that:
“The average total price charged for pregnancy and newborn care was about $30,000 for a vaginal delivery and $50,000 for a C-section, with commercial insurers paying out an average of $18,329 and $27,866, the report found.”
And another big questions is why is it that “Two decades ago, women typically paid nothing other than a small fee if they opted for a private hospital room or television.”
What has changed?
I don’t know…… What are your thoughts? I for one would like to understand the reason for making things so expensive!
For me living in Australia we are lucky to have a great medical system. I know some and most whinge about it but we are very privileged to have mostly free medical care. If you are in trouble or sick, the hospital will help you no matter if you have private health care or not. The doctors will treat you no matter what, it is health care for all.
If you are not a person that wants to go through the public health care system and I can understand as you might have a preferred doctor that only operates at private hospitals and you will need to pay for private treatment if that is your choice. If you are also in a predicament that you need to access the care now and not wait for elective surgery then that is a different matter and you might be in a tricky situation, and I can understand that private might be the only way to go rather than waiting for the public system.
All this aside, we are fortunate to be able to not have to pay a small fortune in case of emergency or sickness falls on us or our family. From my understanding, correct me if I am wrong, that if you are ill or something bad happens that means you need hospital care in the USA you end up paying a fortune. This can mean people might lose their houses, and savings.
I for one like the idea of my country caring for all no matter how rich or poor we are. It is a duty of care that I think we all need. We all pay taxes and contribute so we all deserve great healthcare no matter who we are. It is a right not a privilege.
When I had the twins I was booked into a private hospital as the other ones where we were staying in the city did not make me feel at ease. The private one seemed nice, had what we were after and offered the care that I would need and also to the babies.
To access private care here, you can get some money off if you have been with a private health care insurer for over 12 months and have opted for package that will give you maternity and hospital care for pregnancy.
Cute little foot of new born baby
If I was in the USA when I had the twins I dare say we would have lost our house due to the hospital bills. The twins and I were monitored each fortnight until 28 weeks we had to have scans to make sure they were not suffering from twin to twin transfusion syndrome. Not sure how much that would have cost us, and glad we did not have to know.
In the article from the New Yorker it mentions that doctors are charging inflated charges for everything, from medicines, antiseptics, tests, and so on.
One lady that was interviewed in the article, Dr. Marguerite Duane said that she “was flabbergasted by the line items on the bills, many for blood tests she said were unnecessary and medicines she never received.”
How is giving a couple bill shock helping them with their pregnancy and soon to be child? It is just going to stress them out no end, send them broke and cause more problems.
I don’t live in America and I don’t know what it is really like. I can only go off media and articles that I read from real people. So if you have a story about what happened to you please let me know. If I have got it completely wrong let me know as well.
I think if I was going to move overseas I would go to France, Denmark or Canada.
Let us know your thoughts. Why is it that having a baby is that expensive? Don’t they want the population to expand, if they make it so hard people will not have kids.
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