I'm curious here. How much was your medical bill when your kid(s) were born. Not what the insurance covered, but what you and your significant other has to come out of pocket with.
For me and my wife, our first kid we had to drop $4,500. Half of that had to be paid to the OB/GYN before the baby even arrived because the practice had gotten burned by people being unable to pay the delivery bill.
Second kid was $5,300.
And again, this was our out of pocket, not the portion paid by ins.
Boosting this poll for the day crew. I'm curious. Because with everything going down, I think it's necessary to be reminded of how much in $$$ it actually costs to give birth.
@Hobyrim
I still can't get over how much Americans pay for healthcare! $0 in NZ for everything involving pregnancy, birth and aftercare of my three babies including midwife, hospital stay, birthing centre stay (which is more like a nice hotel to relax in for three days), lactation consultant, and plunket which offers heathchecks and advice for babies/toddlers & their families.
@Hobyrim
& I do understand that we pay for these services with our taxes, which I think it awesome.
I'm reasonably sure we don't pay as much in personal tax as they do in health insurance costs + tax.
@Hobyrim my first labor & delivery cost around $4500 for our out of pocket expanses, and the chemical abortion for my ectopic pregnancy cost $5500 out of pocket because I had to go into the emergency services.
@Hobyrim Sorry, it's free in the Netherlands... (well almost, the annual 'own risk' on healthcare is Euro 350)
@Hobyrim I voted 0 because that’s pretty much what the bill would be in Germany (where I live). There may be some little co-pay like 10€ per day you spend in the hospital (that‘s for any hospital stay) but that’s basically it.
@Hobyrim I'm in the UK where the NHS still holds on by its fingernails and as far as I know still provides free at point of use pre post and delivery care. It's obvs paid by taxes and even though I've never wanted kids myself I'm happy that my taxes help provide that level of care. But, there are now many in the UK govt who want to roll back the NHS and follow the US route and that makes me very very sad.
@Hobyrim My first two were military. Covered. My youngest was civilian. Not covered.
The joke was a wife and kids were not standard issue. In retrospect, Thanks Uncle Sam.
Just making a point here since one of the arguments in the decision is that health care coverage covers pregnancy/delivery.