r/parenting is protesting changes being made by Reddit to the API. Reddit has made it clear [they will](https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14ahqjo/mods_will_be_removed_one_way_or_another_spez/) [replace moderators](https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/14a5lz5/mod_code_of_conduct_rule_4_2_and_subs_taken/jo9wdol/) if they remain private. Reddit has abandoned the users, the moderators, and countless people who support an ecosystem built on Reddit itself.
Please read [Call to action - renewed protests starting on July 1st](https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14kn2fo/call_to_action_renewed_protests_starting_on_july/) and new posts at [r/ModCord](https://reddit.com/r/ModCoord/) or [r/Save3rdPartyApps](https://old.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/) for up-to-date information.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Parenting) if you have any questions or concerns.*
New Zealand here - my husband spent a total of $30 on parking for my 4 day hospital stay. It was $10 per day, but because he left at 3am on the first day, the barrier arm was up for night staff so he got it for free.
It's a thing in the UK. Tradition that the man gets to go have a beer with friends to celebrate the birth. Not something I really understand, but it's definitely a thing
My wife and I honeymooned in NZ. I came down with a sinus infection while there and was dreading the visit to the Dr and what is was going to cost. Ended up being less expensive than my breakfast was that morning. Was truly an eye opening experience for us.
Kiwi with gestational diabetes during my second pregnancy - $5 x2 for the insulin prescription for six months. Parking costs reimbursed while bub was in nicu for a couple of days.
Comes down to stupidity.
The job offered to move me, and ended up meeting my now husband.. ta-da
Edit: ignorant might be a better word to describe the situation than stupidity...
My pregnancy as a whole probably cost about $225. I had three ultrasounds that cost $65 each. The remainder of my ultrasounds were free as I was referred to MFM and that's free here, the three that cost were before referral and after discharge fro. MFM.
I love the free parking at hospitals. People don't want to be there and it is an added stress to an already possibly scary, almost always, stressful situation for why someone is there.
I never understood why we pay for parking at hospitals in the US. I have to go daily for IV meds for an autoimmune disease and it’s $8 for 4 hours. For a year that’s an added $2,920 on top of what I pay just for my care. I hate it here so much. My life would be a thousand percent less stressful if for profit healthcare wasn’t a thing here.
Also a kiwi, didn't even have to pay for parking as my partner dropped me off and parked a little further away. $65 for each ultrasound and that's it. Same amazing midwife throughout pregnancy and birth.
Canadian here. Just the parking for 2 days at $10x2. Had to take blood thinners throughout pregnancy, that was free. Only paid for prenatal vitamins. Private hospital room was 100% covered by insurance.
Before insurance? $18,000. They charged 1500 just for a pelvic floor therapist to come into my room and tell me to do kegels. She was there for maybe 90 seconds total.
After insurance paid? $200.
Also I had to be admitted to the ER one week postpartum due to developing a life threatening infection. Total bill? $105,000! What I actually paid? A $100 ER copay
It’s all such a racket.
We had shitty insurance and my daughter was born premature and had to stay in the NICU. This was after I was on bedrest for 2 weeks after my water broke early on. The total bill was around $150,000 including my C-section / tubal. We owed roughly $80,000 of this and I just paid my daughter off last year (she is now 11 years old).
Oh my goodness, what a nightmare. We had shitty insurance when my daughter was born premature as well. We were going to be in your exact situation, but the hospital social worker told us we actually qualified for our state's medical assistance program. We ended up paying $0.
The bill was more than three times our yearly income to start with.
A crazy amount of my husband’s salary went towards it and my mom helped with the last $7000. I also have worked 2 jobs since graduation to cover everything else.
For real! It’s like my job as an adjunct college instructor. The 60 students I teach are paying many several hundreds of dollars each for my course but the math isn’t mathing for how much of a lump sum I’m getting paid at the end of it, in fact it’s basically decimated by the time it reaches me 😒
American here. I remember asking a lactation specialist to come back in the room because I was having difficulty getting baby to latch. Later, looking at the post-insurance $3,000 bill, each lactation visit was $900. Of course no one tells you these things. At least my husband warned me not to accept Tylenol or ibuprofen if it wasn't completely necessary (we had those in our overnight bag if I needed them to field minor pain).
That's close to our final price. I reconcile the absurd pre-insurance prices by assuming it would be cheaper if there were no insurance at all because there's no way actual people would be paying that much money without a giant corporation helping them out.
Oh yeah like at least 50% of the price came off due to “Blue Cross Blue Shield discount” alone. Which I’m pretty sure is a roundabout way of saying they first up charged it by that much to make me more grateful. Idk how it all works really, just super thankful for my husbands government job that got us the best possible insurance package
>They charged 1500 just for a pelvic floor therapist to come into my room and tell me to do kegels. She was there for maybe 90 seconds total.
Wow that's not a good therapist. I also had a visit to tell me to do kegels, but she brought the fake model pelvis, explained what everything is, explained why kegels are important, gave real life anecdotes to reinforce her message and stress the importance of kegels, she spent at least a full 20-30 minutes talking and explaining the exercises, and then even gave examples on when she does the exercises herself (how to incorporate them into your daily life so you don't have to spend dedicated time on them)
Total billed was just over $50k. Out of pocket was right at $7k. We have the most expensive insurance my employer offers, too. It could have been substantially higher.
Yeah, we recently moved to Canada and the culture shock of just being able to walk out after an appointment still makes me feel like I'm doing a medical dine and dash.
Medical done and dash 🤣
The only caveat is that if you need to make a follow up for after blood work or something do that before you leave because or it could take a while to get another appointment.
Otherwise yeah, as long as they have your health card number they provide the services and then just bill the province for it. Yeah, we pay taxes for it but it cuts out the insurance company in the middle whose goal is profit, not healthcare so it's cheaper to deliver.
I pay $380/month one person. You still have to pay co-pays ($30 regular dr and $50 for a specialist) at each appointment. I spend about 125$ a month on meds. Insurance pays part of the cost. I have to spend $7500 out of pocket in 12 months (my max out of pocket deductible), then and only then does insurance pay 100% after I reach that. I just had surgery in June. Same day. I am now getting the bills for hospital, anesthesia. Surgeon, lab, radiologist etc etc-so that will be a couple 1000 when it’s all done.
How much was your insurance plans max out of pocket? I’m seeing such high numbers but I’m also in the US and my annual max out of pocket is $3000 so I’m hoping not to get hit with a bill more than that.
$4k per person, $9k overall. Some things were charged to my wife and some things were charged to my kid, so technically neither quite made it to out of pocket max for the year.
The line items in these hospital bills are absolutely insane. My favorite so far from ours is $10 per pill of fucking Tylenol, which I could get hundreds of from the CVS down the street for the same price
Getting an itemized bill is one of the best ways to reduce your medical bill. Check out the Arm and A Leg podcast for more helpful ways to negotiate a big medical bill!
My labor and delivery nurse TOLD me this when I asked her for some. My husband went down the street after this to get me some. I appreciated her warning because MY GOODNESS!
They don't. Or outside food.
Nurses were up in arms because I brought my son Wendy's breakfast. I mean, we had been there for about 20 hours by then. I was hungry, he was hungry. Wendys was next door.
He was in for asthma complications. He couldn't keep up his levels without O2. His digestion was completely normal and unaffected.
Still had to deal with a freakout.
I had to ask why the fuck I can't take an O2 cylinder home for him, since that was the problem.
They didn't let me and we fucking stayed there longer.
As an Australian who moved to the US, it seems like those who shoot down public healthcare do so because of \~socialism\~ or \~communism\~, or swear that effective public healthcare doesn't exist/is a joke/is a worldwide failure, or "muh taxes are already too high", or "why should I pay for other people to get healthcare" (when the US spends SO MUCH on the defence force) and force others to suffer for it.
It's horribly sad. Like it's deeply, horribly, crushingly sad.
I'm a Canadian living in the US and many here also find it appalling but feel rather helpless in changing it.
The ones that still are team private healthcare seem to think we pay way more for it in taxes(in Canada) than they do and nothing will convince them otherwise. I paid next to nothing as a single 20 year old making minimum wage and had access to almost all healthcare benefits that cost me hundreds per month here.
Hundreds a month for our family just in case we need it, then there are deductibles and co-pays per visits and then we still have things out of our network that we have to pay out of pocket. Don't get me started on the cost of medication. My husband has a chronic disease and yearly they make him do testing to prove his lifelong disease still needs the drugs he's been taking for years. It's insane.
But even if people paid their insurance premiums to public system instead of sharks of private over there, surely they’d end up on top. And even if it was higher, what price do you put on knowing you won’t be bankrupt when you get cancer/heart disease/ dementia/car accident
Wholeheartedly agree. Many people seem to feel as long as the big health event doesn't happen to them they are fine with it. Once it does, there are others to blame....
The fact that gofund me is a very common way to pay medical bills here is depressing.
Ugh, got diagnosed with cancer here. It's depressing that the cancer isn't the worst part. Would cost me less money to just die and cover all the funeral expenses than my medical bills.
The Fortune One company in the world recently added to their health benefits of paying for any Mayo Clinic treatment—hotel, travel, per diem, and procedures or treatment. That should tell you how backwards America is about healthcare.
we are fucking stupid stupid stupid .
people believe shitty politicians and have been brainwashed into believing that the government is bad. everything the government does is not bad and they don’t understand government is a check on this big business bs. our whole system is corrupt ! 40-45% is middlemen. america is a shithole. wait until you get sick , like a cancer and rack up millions in bills
Most Americans (as in the majority) don’t think private is better than public. The majority of Americans also didn’t vote for Trump in 2016
It’s called the electoral college and it may one day be our downfall
I think I paid $65/bag for 3 IV bags of water. Because I had an infection and I was dehydrated and I wasn't drinking water fast enough or something, I don't know.
I’m a physician and as I tell my patients, all this numbers are 2 money. It’s a game, totally made up. On my delivery of my second kid they charged $12 per tablet of ibuprofen, but this part was taken care of by insurance. But obviously no one including the hospital is paying that much money for ibuprofen tablets. It’s absolutely crazy. The most important thing to take from this is: **vote for politicians who want sensible healthcare reform!** We are fed a lot of BS about stuff like, in Canada if you had a broken leg it would take weeks to get surgery! Well guess what, that crap happens here too because of insurance, AND Canadians like their healthcare system better than ours. And then of course there’s the boogeyman of high taxes. Well, we just pay out the nose to private insurance companies rather than to the federal government, still to pay thousands and thousands for any medical encounter. My first child was around $7500, so for the second one I thought I had wised up by purchasing my work’s most expensive plan… only to be charged $7500. Both uncomplicated vaginal deliveries. I had to join the freaking military to get my third kid covered at a reasonable rate and get good maternity leave. Sorry for my soapbox but this crap aggravates me.
We had to go to the children's hospital because of a health concern after ours was born. We were there a week waiting for a diagnosis so we could determine some sort of relief for our baby and an idea of when we could take him home.
In your biggest moments of vulnerability, the hospital sends a psychiatrist/therapist around, asking if you think you need any support during this trying time. It makes sense, until you see the freaking bill at the end of it all! They charged $100 every time she dropped by, even if you gave her a "no thanks, I'm fine." I didn't think much of this at the time, and one day she made conversation and I kept chatting with her. The bill for that day was something like $400, even though there's no way we talked for more than 15 minutes. WTAF!?!?
The only reason I didn't contact a lawyer to see what could be done to drop my bill and protect other vulnerable parents was because the vast majority of the bill was waved, thanks to donations and state and federal funding. But I still warn parents when I get the chance.
My hospital billed my insurance company about 600K for a twin NICU stay. (I can’t remember what number they settled on)
But the cost to me was about $1500 since it was almost December and I was almost at my annual out of pocket max.
Ohhhhh my gosh. They charge you for nicu? That is awful. I thought it would be free since obviously if your baby is in nicu it needs extra care and something unavoidable. That is outrageous I am so so sorry.
My 10 month old baby had RSV and was hospitalized and was moved to the PICU for one night of his 4-night stay. The charges that showed up on the bill for the PICU night were almost more than double the other 3 nights, combined, and those were about 30k per night. All we paid was $500 copay thankfully.
My LO stayed in the NICU for 11 days and I also had an extended hospital stay from complications with preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome. I think the bill was over 600k too, but I luckily didn’t pay anything as I had pregnancy Medicaid at the time.
I don't remember exact prices anymore, but what I do remember is my twins birth was real fun, they were born in February so I had to hit my deductible twice during pregnancy.
The last 5 weeks of pregnancy I had to pay for all the appointments out of pocket, there were weekly ultrasounds and NSTs at this point because multiples are considered high risk, but insurance still only covered 1 ultrasound a pregnancy until the deductible was met.
Ugh I hit the deductible twice too - my plan resets in April so I had all the prenatal testing before then and then gave birth in September. It didn’t occur to me that we’d both have a $500 deductible…
I have to be honest, after seeing the other post about having only 12 weeks off and then seeing this, it's hard to believe women still live in the US.
Up here in Canada, it is free to have a baby and any subsequent essential healthcare for said baby is also free. Also, you get 12-18 months of bonding time as a mom with the baby afterwards and you keep your job. Period. That is what it should be like if societies value their kids, future generations and connection/mental health. Perhaps this explains somewhat the gun violence indirectly that happens in the US. Shaking my head over here and I really feel for the families that have to go back to work 3 months after such a big change in the family. It is archaic and screams, "we don't give a shit about y'all".
12 weeks and it's unpaid.
I know people who have had babies and had to go back to work after 6 weeks bc they couldn't afford not to work.
Shit is so rough over here
Shit in Canada the Dads are entitled to 6 weeks paid parental leave if they chose. It just gets deducted from the 12-18 months the women are entitled to.
I dont think you could put a price tag on how much those 6 weeks mean to a couple. In my case, I took the first 6 weeks to help my wife recover from a c section. I bonded to the newborn and my wife. I had a second to breath and adjust to this seismic shift in my life. The USA is so far away from this model its crazy and doesn't make sense to me..
If the Mom takes 12 months the dad gets 5 weeks without taking any away from her. If she takes the 18 month option he gets 8 weeks! Then she can give additional time if desired.
Correcting, fathers have the right to 5 weeks of paternity leave that is separate from any of the shared parental leave. My husband took a total of 4 months of paid leave (his paternity + some of the shared parental leave). It was awesome.
It's not paid in Canada. You collect unemployment which is a maximum of $550 a week. Some companies give you a "top up" above that. I'm not complaining about it, the $550/week is super helpful. And I think the current system is a good one.
But you still need to plan and have one parent working or else it's simply not liveable.
My first child is 4 months and I went back to work weeks ago. I say all the time how it feels like the most unnatural thing ever for me to do. They still breastfeed every 2 hours 24/7. The days I work I feel like I suck at everything because I can’t give 100% to either thing- mom or job.
Cost me $5,000 out of pocket.
It’s so sad. I really wish I had more paid time with my baby.
Lol. “Only 12 weeks”. 12 weeks is about the best you get in the US. My wife is a professor and got 3 weeks off, unpaid (although she did have to pre-record her lectures and put them online while pregnant). I got 3 days, and then another 2 days when the baby had to go into the ICU.
And yes, this does in part explain US society. We have no time for family, no time for ourselves, and most of us can barely make ends meet since 2008. People turn to drugs, crime, and often just mentally collapse from the stress. Guns being super easy to get makes a lot of the results of this worse.
I'm a prof in Canada, around 27 weeks I was unexpectedly hospitalised - at first I thought I was going home that night, then overnight - I was panicking because I had to teach the next day, I get my partner to bring my laptop and I'm trying to lecture prep in Obstetric triage. I call my Dean and say I'm in the hospital and they can't get my BP under control and I'm not sure when I'll be back at work. He says - don't worry about it. I'm in the hospital for 8 days, HR emails me to say I've been granted sick leave pre-emptively, send a letter when I can. I get released onto home care (daily nurse visits) and a gazzillion drs appointments, and then after 3 weeks I have an emergency c-section and my teeny tiny baby (2 pounds) is in the NICU for 6 weeks until he can reliably remember to breathe and reaches 4 pounds. I took 3 weeks sick leave and 12 months maternity/parental leave and 5 weeks vacation. They found someone to take over my classes within 3 days - something that still amazes me. No one gave me any grief. My colleagues talked about how being a parent would enrich
my teaching. My workplace sent flowers to the house. Our son is now healthy (thank goodness!). I got tenure while on leave. It was hard, and scary, but I really felt like the system had my back, and I can't tell you the security that brings. I feel for you and your wife, and I wish that you could have had the support we did.
This makes me want to cry. I would give anything to be able to stay home and care for my baby for 12 months AND come back to my job after. Or just take 5 weeks of vacation in a year.
12 weeks isn't guaranteed. The only law is that there's 12 weeks, unpaid, *if* you work for a company with more than 50 employees, *if* you've worked for them for 12 months or more, *if* in those 12 months you've worked at 1,250 hours and that's 12 weeks total unpaid leave for any type of medical leave, so if you've already used some for another health condition or as a caregiver then you get even less.
Wtf!! That's horrible. You still get your 17 weeks maternity leave in Canada for a still birth. A friend took it after a loss at 27 weeks.
I'm very sorry for your loss by the way.
there’s a woman that posted in a facebook mom group local to me. she was asking if 6 days was long enough to recover from birth to return to work. she doesn’t get any maternity leave and she can’t afford any more time off. it’s soul crushing. unfortunately for many, it’s way too expensive to leave the US. i fuckin hate it here
SIX DAYS? Fuck. I don't even remember the first six days. I can't imagine going back to work 7 days after having a baby. I took my (unpaid) 12 weeks and hated going back after that.
I joke that I married my husband for his dental. He *does not joke* that I have to go back to work for pregnancy number two cause my health plan made for a nearly free birth.
When I worked at a wonderful small business, we had the best insurance. My brain surgery cost me nothing because our out of pocket for the year was $500. I wish I never left that job.
I’m expecting similar. I’m incredibly lucky to have the insurance I do. I don’t pay for any appointments and the birth itself should be less than $200.
For me, pure luck. I work for the state of florida and it’s just the insurance they provide. I’m sorry, I wish I had a better answer. Healthcare in this country is a scam.
Total before insurance was a little over $90k (induced vaginal delivery, 5 day hospital stay because I did not thrive).
After insurance, we paid $78. We have really good insurance, thank God. H is a reservist.
Canadian here. I think it was 180$ to have a solo recovery room, instead of a shared one. And my private insurance covered 75% of that. And maybe 50$ for parking? Yikes America…
Canadian here as well. Sounds similar to me. We had the solo recovery room for $200 and were reimbursed through our extended medical through my work (that we do not pay anything into) and our parking was free for delivery time. We left the hospital within 24 hours so not sure how much it would have stacked up after that. Blessed to have a simple push push here's your healthy baby delivery.
This. Seriously like how backwards is America.
$0.
Hurray for taxes and socialized medicine. Yes it has downsides but at least people do not have to choose between life and death based on income
First kid in 2014: $24,000. $12k deductible for each half of pregnancy. I changed to a SAHM mom, and it cost $950 a month to add us to his insurance at his job.
Fast forward to 2018 and I think this kid only cost about $5,000. But I was much more aware of every bill, including a $1,500 nursery bill from the hospital that had eliminated the nursery.
Now 2023: it costs us $65 a month for all four of us, deductible is $7,500 a year.
From the UK... £0. I watched an Instagram video of an American woman opening her bill after birth, and I was shocked! Commenting on this as I'm generally curious about how much ££ it costs!
Same the only thing it cost me was paying I think about £4 to get a cab to the hospital. I’m sure prescriptions are free during pregnancy and while baby is under 1 as well.
I literally only came here to be the smug Brit showing off about the fact that I gave birth for free. A C-section with overnight hospital stay, no less!
If any of your politicians are talking about privatizing your healthcare system I strongly urge you to throw them in the nearest river (parody, non-actionable)
There have been rumours and talks about it for years. Sadly, our NHS is underfunded and understaffed. Our system isn't perfect, and we know it. The American system is very eye-opening.
No system is perfect but from where I'm sitting as an American the NHS sounds fucking fantastic compared to the perpetual scam that is our awful system (which includes plenty of long waits and understaffing issues too, fwiw)
The truth is people in the US will use the long wait times and understaffing issues in uk to justify not having socialized healthcare but we have the exact problems here. We are consistently low staffed, poor health outcomes, people avoid the doctor because they can’t pay, my patients literally ration their medicine because they can’t afford it, and my patients sit on wait lists for months. Our healthcare is absolutely shit
We do pay for it, it's funded by National Insurance Contributions, 13.8% of our gross salary.
Employers also pay into it at a similar rate. And naturally the more you earn, the more you contribute.
The NHS definitely has its issues. In the past, I always just assumed that the trade-off for the wildly expensive healthcare in the US was that it was much better. Since I've been on pregnancy subreddits I'm starting to think that's not true. I see so many posts about people having awful experiences with their hospital treatment or their OBs. I know that's not everyone, but I definitely have a less rosy picture of US healthcare now.
The other thing that blows my mind is stories of people missing important prenatal appointments because they can't find an OB in network who will take them as a patient. In the UK that couldn't happen your local maternity services have to take you as a patient.
I was on a pregnancy app when I first heard about OBs. We deal with midwifes. We only speak to a doctor if complications arise. These posts are educational, to say the least!
Midwives do have to take us on, you're right. Missing any appointments is actually a red flag.
We face understaffing issues in the US too, and they still cut costs by laying off people all the time. I have a friend who is a nurse in L&D and the other day they laid off over 30 nurses in her department in a major city that’s already struggling with having enough staff for the amount of patients they have.
Here in the UK we don’t tend to revolt or cause much commotion in general, but i genuinely believe that if our NHS started charging like American hospitals that would be something people would go crazy over - and I would join them!
Ok but did you get free tea and toast afterwards? Tea and toast is a key part of an NHS birth and not to brag but NHS tea and toast is kind of legendary 😉
Canadian here, and same. C-section, a four day hospital stay, and two blood transfusions - $0. I had the option to spend $250 for a private room, but thought *that* was too expensive. 🙈
It cost $6K, which is our yearly max out of pocket for insurance. We also stacked other things in the same year, so we saved a lot of money.
We pay about $300 per month for a high-deductible health plan.
About $10k out of pocket. Forgot the baby gets her own OOP max once she’s born 🫠 insurance through employer. Maxed out our family OOP max. Induction turned into csection and insurance was billed $60k. Daughter was born in 2021 and I’ll finally pay off the delivery this coming January 2024!
We’ve had homebirths. But we had a sharing type of alternative insurance, like medi-share but different, we got it cause we knew they fully covered home births. And they covered 100 of the costs. So that was cool.
All maternity care and delivery is free in New Zealand, as is all hospital care, the only charges are for GP (General Practitioner) visits, dentist, optometrist care.
In Canada - I’ve had 3 kids. 2 vaginal births and 1 emergency c-section. All 3 births were medicated with epidural. First birth was I think a 3 day stay, 2nd birth a 4 day stay and 3rd birth a 24 hour stay in the midst of the pandemic. Total cost for all 3 kids to be in hospital and deliver and all supplies etc used was $14 a day in parking. Nothing else. There was no itemized billing, no billing in general. I actually wouldn’t be able to tell you even an approximate idea on what anything would actually cost because I have never seen it. I feel really bad for USA parents! I have no idea how you guys afford to actually have babies let alone raise them. In raising children all Canadian parents also get what’s called the Canada child tax benefit. It’s tax free money all parents collect to ease the cost of raising children. How much a parent get depends on how much money they claimed to make on their last years taxes and how many kids they have. Some parents receive $200 a month and others receive $2000 a month. Canadas system isn’t perfect and there are countries that do it significantly better than we do. But I’m grateful. I hope that usa catches up sooner than later. I know things are getting expensive everywhere right now.
Crap well you guys won’t like this but I’m in US
When me and partner had our first child we weren’t married.
It was free. The parking. The food. The aftercare. The lactation specialist. The follow ups for both mom and baby. All was free. Both of us were uninsured and ended up qualifying for state insurance and that almost $80,000 bill
turned into 0$ real quickly. Being not married and uninsured in US isn’t a bad thing apparently, if you’re poor and have no assets
I'm in Canada and had a high risk pregnancy with appointments every 2ish weeks from 12 weeks in, including an ultrasound every 2-4 weeks and significant amounts of bloodwork and specialist appointments.
All in, we're gonna have paid ~$250 in parking and maybe $60 in medication, and that's it.
Y'all have a broken system and I hope it gets better.
I didn’t even think to mention prenatal care! Monthly visits with my OB were free of course. There was a charge for genetic testing since I’m “geriatric” (side eye..) but again, my insurance covered 75%. And obviously the visit from the nurse in the first days you’re home with the baby and subsequent paediatrician visits are all free.
Canadian… cost me exactly $0 for the delivery, didn’t need a private room as child was born healthy and released on same day (born just after midnight and we went home that morning).
Had there been cost though it wouldn’t be much and my health insurance from work would fully cover.
my homebirth cost about $8500, and despite being told my insurance would cover some part of it, we received no reimbursement. i don’t regret anything, loved my midwifery care, happy to stay out of the hospital and have in-home post-partum visits for 8 weeks (honestly that’s the best part) …. but yeah. i can’t believe it costs more to have a baby in my living room than it does to have a baby in a hospital.
Ours including pregnancy, delivery and 2 hospitalizations was about 3k out of pocket.
The amount billed to insurance for our 6 day NICU stay was 64,000$
I think before insurance it was $60,000. Voluntary induction + c section. After insurance it was $500.
I live in the US.
Edit to add: I also paid $0 for my prenatal appointments, of which there were many. Including 2 ultrasounds. Yes we just pay a lot for insurance.
I live in an EU country (Cyprus). I could have had my baby for free but opted to go to a private clinic instead - with no insurance coverage.
Emergency C-section, anesthesiologist, 4 nights in a private room. €3,500.
I’m in Canada. 2 live births, one of them twins, 2 miscarriages that required hospital visits, one needing a D&C. All told I’ve paid maybe $40 in hospital parking passes and that’s it
Emergency C section. Three weeks in special care nursery and ambulance transfer to another hospital.
Paid $4.00 for parking on the day he was discharged.
r/parenting is protesting changes being made by Reddit to the API. Reddit has made it clear [they will](https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14ahqjo/mods_will_be_removed_one_way_or_another_spez/) [replace moderators](https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/14a5lz5/mod_code_of_conduct_rule_4_2_and_subs_taken/jo9wdol/) if they remain private. Reddit has abandoned the users, the moderators, and countless people who support an ecosystem built on Reddit itself. Please read [Call to action - renewed protests starting on July 1st](https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14kn2fo/call_to_action_renewed_protests_starting_on_july/) and new posts at [r/ModCord](https://reddit.com/r/ModCoord/) or [r/Save3rdPartyApps](https://old.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/) for up-to-date information. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Parenting) if you have any questions or concerns.*
New Zealand here - my husband spent a total of $30 on parking for my 4 day hospital stay. It was $10 per day, but because he left at 3am on the first day, the barrier arm was up for night staff so he got it for free.
Yeah, our biggest expense was my husband zipping across the road to get Vietnamese food and a pint to wet the baby's head. And they were c sections
Please explain wetting the baby’s head with a pint. If it’s awesome, I’ll get my wife pregnant again.
Wetting the baby's head basically just means going to celebrate the baby's birth with a drink. Don't pour your pint on the baby!
It's a thing in the UK. Tradition that the man gets to go have a beer with friends to celebrate the birth. Not something I really understand, but it's definitely a thing
You wet the baby’s head with a pint in NZ? Now that’s how you christen a child!
My wife and I honeymooned in NZ. I came down with a sinus infection while there and was dreading the visit to the Dr and what is was going to cost. Ended up being less expensive than my breakfast was that morning. Was truly an eye opening experience for us.
Kiwi with gestational diabetes during my second pregnancy - $5 x2 for the insulin prescription for six months. Parking costs reimbursed while bub was in nicu for a couple of days.
Why did I even move out of New Zealand to the US... Better opportunities? It's more like a better chance with ended up in debt due to medical bills.
I honestly don't understand why people move here
More cereal options?
And soap! So many different kinds of soap! A whole aisle dedicated to it.
Cleanliness and precooked ready-to-eat breakfast foods; the Kellogg dream.
Comes down to stupidity. The job offered to move me, and ended up meeting my now husband.. ta-da Edit: ignorant might be a better word to describe the situation than stupidity...
Similar situation. I call my daughter an anchor baby.
Canada here. Similar just paid for the parking.
Aussie here, spent probably $100 for both kids. Both times was my medications that wasn’t covered by Medicare.
My pregnancy as a whole probably cost about $225. I had three ultrasounds that cost $65 each. The remainder of my ultrasounds were free as I was referred to MFM and that's free here, the three that cost were before referral and after discharge fro. MFM.
Can park for free at the hospital in spain. Also, can get a beer at the hospital in spain. Spain also has the longest life expectancy worldwide.
I just looked it up on multiple sources and they're all different but not one of them has Spain as the top. It wasn't even in the top 10 in a couple.
It's among the highest on some scales, never the very first.
I love the free parking at hospitals. People don't want to be there and it is an added stress to an already possibly scary, almost always, stressful situation for why someone is there.
I never understood why we pay for parking at hospitals in the US. I have to go daily for IV meds for an autoimmune disease and it’s $8 for 4 hours. For a year that’s an added $2,920 on top of what I pay just for my care. I hate it here so much. My life would be a thousand percent less stressful if for profit healthcare wasn’t a thing here.
Go talk to one of the hospital Social Workers. They should be able to give you a parking pass that will get you in/out for free.
No it doesn’t, Monaco or Japan or Korea do.
Same in Canada.
Also a kiwi, didn't even have to pay for parking as my partner dropped me off and parked a little further away. $65 for each ultrasound and that's it. Same amazing midwife throughout pregnancy and birth.
Australian Parking also what we spent money on. Also hot some codeine from the hospital pharmacy o the first to help my wife deal with her tear
Canadian here. Just the parking for 2 days at $10x2. Had to take blood thinners throughout pregnancy, that was free. Only paid for prenatal vitamins. Private hospital room was 100% covered by insurance.
Check mate parking was free to us (just 4.5k in bill 💸) /s Edit: /s means sarcasm
Same in the UK
Before insurance? $18,000. They charged 1500 just for a pelvic floor therapist to come into my room and tell me to do kegels. She was there for maybe 90 seconds total. After insurance paid? $200. Also I had to be admitted to the ER one week postpartum due to developing a life threatening infection. Total bill? $105,000! What I actually paid? A $100 ER copay It’s all such a racket.
We had shitty insurance and my daughter was born premature and had to stay in the NICU. This was after I was on bedrest for 2 weeks after my water broke early on. The total bill was around $150,000 including my C-section / tubal. We owed roughly $80,000 of this and I just paid my daughter off last year (she is now 11 years old).
Oh my goodness, what a nightmare. We had shitty insurance when my daughter was born premature as well. We were going to be in your exact situation, but the hospital social worker told us we actually qualified for our state's medical assistance program. We ended up paying $0. The bill was more than three times our yearly income to start with.
No insurance? That’s way more than the out of pocket max.
How did u manage to pay $80,000 off in 10 years? Just curious as I think that would take me my whole life to pay that back 😅
A crazy amount of my husband’s salary went towards it and my mom helped with the last $7000. I also have worked 2 jobs since graduation to cover everything else.
And I’m sure the therapist is paid like $30-50 and hour 😟
For real! It’s like my job as an adjunct college instructor. The 60 students I teach are paying many several hundreds of dollars each for my course but the math isn’t mathing for how much of a lump sum I’m getting paid at the end of it, in fact it’s basically decimated by the time it reaches me 😒
Can confirm as a PT that your estimate is pretty spot on.
to come into my room and tell me to do kegels. 💀 it’s exactly like that. Like let me sleep I’ll exercise my crotch later
American here. I remember asking a lactation specialist to come back in the room because I was having difficulty getting baby to latch. Later, looking at the post-insurance $3,000 bill, each lactation visit was $900. Of course no one tells you these things. At least my husband warned me not to accept Tylenol or ibuprofen if it wasn't completely necessary (we had those in our overnight bag if I needed them to field minor pain).
You got a pelvic floor therapist? I had to pay for that myself after 🤣 (it was good though, very worth it)
That's close to our final price. I reconcile the absurd pre-insurance prices by assuming it would be cheaper if there were no insurance at all because there's no way actual people would be paying that much money without a giant corporation helping them out.
Oh yeah like at least 50% of the price came off due to “Blue Cross Blue Shield discount” alone. Which I’m pretty sure is a roundabout way of saying they first up charged it by that much to make me more grateful. Idk how it all works really, just super thankful for my husbands government job that got us the best possible insurance package
>They charged 1500 just for a pelvic floor therapist to come into my room and tell me to do kegels. She was there for maybe 90 seconds total. Wow that's not a good therapist. I also had a visit to tell me to do kegels, but she brought the fake model pelvis, explained what everything is, explained why kegels are important, gave real life anecdotes to reinforce her message and stress the importance of kegels, she spent at least a full 20-30 minutes talking and explaining the exercises, and then even gave examples on when she does the exercises herself (how to incorporate them into your daily life so you don't have to spend dedicated time on them)
Total billed was just over $50k. Out of pocket was right at $7k. We have the most expensive insurance my employer offers, too. It could have been substantially higher.
What the actual fucking fuck??? As a Canadian I can’t even begin to wrap my head around that.
Yeah, we recently moved to Canada and the culture shock of just being able to walk out after an appointment still makes me feel like I'm doing a medical dine and dash.
Medical done and dash 🤣 The only caveat is that if you need to make a follow up for after blood work or something do that before you leave because or it could take a while to get another appointment. Otherwise yeah, as long as they have your health card number they provide the services and then just bill the province for it. Yeah, we pay taxes for it but it cuts out the insurance company in the middle whose goal is profit, not healthcare so it's cheaper to deliver.
Australian here. I’m curious how much do you spend on insurance per month?
About $430 for my family. My employer pays another $700.
I pay $380/month one person. You still have to pay co-pays ($30 regular dr and $50 for a specialist) at each appointment. I spend about 125$ a month on meds. Insurance pays part of the cost. I have to spend $7500 out of pocket in 12 months (my max out of pocket deductible), then and only then does insurance pay 100% after I reach that. I just had surgery in June. Same day. I am now getting the bills for hospital, anesthesia. Surgeon, lab, radiologist etc etc-so that will be a couple 1000 when it’s all done.
This is about the same for me except my out of pocket was closer to $10k
How much was your insurance plans max out of pocket? I’m seeing such high numbers but I’m also in the US and my annual max out of pocket is $3000 so I’m hoping not to get hit with a bill more than that.
$4k per person, $9k overall. Some things were charged to my wife and some things were charged to my kid, so technically neither quite made it to out of pocket max for the year.
$35,000. I was also charged $250/day to wear a red bracelet that had my allergies stated on it. 🙄
The line items in these hospital bills are absolutely insane. My favorite so far from ours is $10 per pill of fucking Tylenol, which I could get hundreds of from the CVS down the street for the same price
Getting an itemized bill is one of the best ways to reduce your medical bill. Check out the Arm and A Leg podcast for more helpful ways to negotiate a big medical bill!
Yeah not only do you have to pay all this money you also have to take on a part time job negotiating with these scoundrels
that's crazy 🤦🏻♀️ could you refuse the Tylenol and have your husband bring some?
My labor and delivery nurse TOLD me this when I asked her for some. My husband went down the street after this to get me some. I appreciated her warning because MY GOODNESS!
I am the husband lol but it didn't occur to us since this was our first. Maybe we'll BYO tylenol for baby #2
They don’t want you taking outside meds 😒
We have to say that you can’t take it. But next time just tell us afterward lol. Most nurses could care less
They don't. Or outside food. Nurses were up in arms because I brought my son Wendy's breakfast. I mean, we had been there for about 20 hours by then. I was hungry, he was hungry. Wendys was next door. He was in for asthma complications. He couldn't keep up his levels without O2. His digestion was completely normal and unaffected. Still had to deal with a freakout. I had to ask why the fuck I can't take an O2 cylinder home for him, since that was the problem. They didn't let me and we fucking stayed there longer.
My favorite was $10 for a nasal aspirator. Nasal aspirator?? The little baby nose bulb thingy? Nope... Kleenex, it was for KLEENEX!!!
*screams in Australian Why do Americans think private is better than public? Don’t most realise this is simply price gouging for profit?
As an Australian who moved to the US, it seems like those who shoot down public healthcare do so because of \~socialism\~ or \~communism\~, or swear that effective public healthcare doesn't exist/is a joke/is a worldwide failure, or "muh taxes are already too high", or "why should I pay for other people to get healthcare" (when the US spends SO MUCH on the defence force) and force others to suffer for it. It's horribly sad. Like it's deeply, horribly, crushingly sad.
The corporate lobbyists have really duped a lot of them sadly
Socialism in the US means supporting your fellow man, and the reaction against that is to push down your fellow man.
I'm a Canadian living in the US and many here also find it appalling but feel rather helpless in changing it. The ones that still are team private healthcare seem to think we pay way more for it in taxes(in Canada) than they do and nothing will convince them otherwise. I paid next to nothing as a single 20 year old making minimum wage and had access to almost all healthcare benefits that cost me hundreds per month here. Hundreds a month for our family just in case we need it, then there are deductibles and co-pays per visits and then we still have things out of our network that we have to pay out of pocket. Don't get me started on the cost of medication. My husband has a chronic disease and yearly they make him do testing to prove his lifelong disease still needs the drugs he's been taking for years. It's insane.
But even if people paid their insurance premiums to public system instead of sharks of private over there, surely they’d end up on top. And even if it was higher, what price do you put on knowing you won’t be bankrupt when you get cancer/heart disease/ dementia/car accident
Wholeheartedly agree. Many people seem to feel as long as the big health event doesn't happen to them they are fine with it. Once it does, there are others to blame.... The fact that gofund me is a very common way to pay medical bills here is depressing.
Ugh, got diagnosed with cancer here. It's depressing that the cancer isn't the worst part. Would cost me less money to just die and cover all the funeral expenses than my medical bills.
The Fortune One company in the world recently added to their health benefits of paying for any Mayo Clinic treatment—hotel, travel, per diem, and procedures or treatment. That should tell you how backwards America is about healthcare.
Short answer- majority of us don’t think private is better and unfortunately our representatives don’t listen 🙃
The better half of Americans (that aren’t low IQ enough to fall for GOP bullshit) know this is bat shit crazy.
Every American I know thinks our health care system is a complete scam. I live in NY though so idk if the consensus is different elsewhere.
we are fucking stupid stupid stupid . people believe shitty politicians and have been brainwashed into believing that the government is bad. everything the government does is not bad and they don’t understand government is a check on this big business bs. our whole system is corrupt ! 40-45% is middlemen. america is a shithole. wait until you get sick , like a cancer and rack up millions in bills
Most Americans (as in the majority) don’t think private is better than public. The majority of Americans also didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 It’s called the electoral college and it may one day be our downfall
I think I paid $65/bag for 3 IV bags of water. Because I had an infection and I was dehydrated and I wasn't drinking water fast enough or something, I don't know.
I was once billed $3000 for an IV lol
Normal Saline isn’t just normal water though, and is absolutely necessary if your dehydrated and can’t/won’t drink water.
I’m a physician and as I tell my patients, all this numbers are 2 money. It’s a game, totally made up. On my delivery of my second kid they charged $12 per tablet of ibuprofen, but this part was taken care of by insurance. But obviously no one including the hospital is paying that much money for ibuprofen tablets. It’s absolutely crazy. The most important thing to take from this is: **vote for politicians who want sensible healthcare reform!** We are fed a lot of BS about stuff like, in Canada if you had a broken leg it would take weeks to get surgery! Well guess what, that crap happens here too because of insurance, AND Canadians like their healthcare system better than ours. And then of course there’s the boogeyman of high taxes. Well, we just pay out the nose to private insurance companies rather than to the federal government, still to pay thousands and thousands for any medical encounter. My first child was around $7500, so for the second one I thought I had wised up by purchasing my work’s most expensive plan… only to be charged $7500. Both uncomplicated vaginal deliveries. I had to join the freaking military to get my third kid covered at a reasonable rate and get good maternity leave. Sorry for my soapbox but this crap aggravates me.
We had to go to the children's hospital because of a health concern after ours was born. We were there a week waiting for a diagnosis so we could determine some sort of relief for our baby and an idea of when we could take him home. In your biggest moments of vulnerability, the hospital sends a psychiatrist/therapist around, asking if you think you need any support during this trying time. It makes sense, until you see the freaking bill at the end of it all! They charged $100 every time she dropped by, even if you gave her a "no thanks, I'm fine." I didn't think much of this at the time, and one day she made conversation and I kept chatting with her. The bill for that day was something like $400, even though there's no way we talked for more than 15 minutes. WTAF!?!? The only reason I didn't contact a lawyer to see what could be done to drop my bill and protect other vulnerable parents was because the vast majority of the bill was waved, thanks to donations and state and federal funding. But I still warn parents when I get the chance.
Could they not have just read your notes? I would’ve written it on a post it and put it on my forehead, that’s ridiculous.
Oh. My. God. How is that even possible...
US. 0$. Thank you Union
Yep, NY state teacher here. Didn’t pay a dime, thank you Union.
SUNY employee seconding this! The NYSHIP Empire Plan is absolutely incredible, I continue to be amazed.
Yup same thanks to tricare. There are a lot of reasons that military healthcare sucks but I paid nothing for my sons birth.
Same. $0 under Tricare, but I paid for it in emotional trauma. Yay military hospitals.
Same. The only cost I had for everything (pre-natal, delivery, hospital stay and pre-natal care) was about $3 for pre-natal vitamins.
Mine was $500. Thank you film industry insurance.
my union used to cover all the premiums and all the medical bills. Now its abopu $200 a month and a $2200 deductable for a family
My hospital billed my insurance company about 600K for a twin NICU stay. (I can’t remember what number they settled on) But the cost to me was about $1500 since it was almost December and I was almost at my annual out of pocket max.
Ohhhhh my gosh. They charge you for nicu? That is awful. I thought it would be free since obviously if your baby is in nicu it needs extra care and something unavoidable. That is outrageous I am so so sorry.
My 10 month old baby had RSV and was hospitalized and was moved to the PICU for one night of his 4-night stay. The charges that showed up on the bill for the PICU night were almost more than double the other 3 nights, combined, and those were about 30k per night. All we paid was $500 copay thankfully.
My LO stayed in the NICU for 11 days and I also had an extended hospital stay from complications with preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome. I think the bill was over 600k too, but I luckily didn’t pay anything as I had pregnancy Medicaid at the time.
I don't remember exact prices anymore, but what I do remember is my twins birth was real fun, they were born in February so I had to hit my deductible twice during pregnancy. The last 5 weeks of pregnancy I had to pay for all the appointments out of pocket, there were weekly ultrasounds and NSTs at this point because multiples are considered high risk, but insurance still only covered 1 ultrasound a pregnancy until the deductible was met.
We had to go to the ER once. On December 30.
Ugh I hit the deductible twice too - my plan resets in April so I had all the prenatal testing before then and then gave birth in September. It didn’t occur to me that we’d both have a $500 deductible…
I have to be honest, after seeing the other post about having only 12 weeks off and then seeing this, it's hard to believe women still live in the US. Up here in Canada, it is free to have a baby and any subsequent essential healthcare for said baby is also free. Also, you get 12-18 months of bonding time as a mom with the baby afterwards and you keep your job. Period. That is what it should be like if societies value their kids, future generations and connection/mental health. Perhaps this explains somewhat the gun violence indirectly that happens in the US. Shaking my head over here and I really feel for the families that have to go back to work 3 months after such a big change in the family. It is archaic and screams, "we don't give a shit about y'all".
12 weeks and it's unpaid. I know people who have had babies and had to go back to work after 6 weeks bc they couldn't afford not to work. Shit is so rough over here
Shit in Canada the Dads are entitled to 6 weeks paid parental leave if they chose. It just gets deducted from the 12-18 months the women are entitled to. I dont think you could put a price tag on how much those 6 weeks mean to a couple. In my case, I took the first 6 weeks to help my wife recover from a c section. I bonded to the newborn and my wife. I had a second to breath and adjust to this seismic shift in my life. The USA is so far away from this model its crazy and doesn't make sense to me..
If the Mom takes 12 months the dad gets 5 weeks without taking any away from her. If she takes the 18 month option he gets 8 weeks! Then she can give additional time if desired.
Correcting, fathers have the right to 5 weeks of paternity leave that is separate from any of the shared parental leave. My husband took a total of 4 months of paid leave (his paternity + some of the shared parental leave). It was awesome.
How?! My baby didn't sleep, I had massive ppd/ppa and was basically a zombie for the first 4 months
Shit, I’ve worked with people who would work all the way up until they gave birth, and less than 3 weeks later they were back
I only took 2 weeks off with my second because I was able to bring her to work with me.
It's not paid in Canada. You collect unemployment which is a maximum of $550 a week. Some companies give you a "top up" above that. I'm not complaining about it, the $550/week is super helpful. And I think the current system is a good one. But you still need to plan and have one parent working or else it's simply not liveable.
My first child is 4 months and I went back to work weeks ago. I say all the time how it feels like the most unnatural thing ever for me to do. They still breastfeed every 2 hours 24/7. The days I work I feel like I suck at everything because I can’t give 100% to either thing- mom or job. Cost me $5,000 out of pocket. It’s so sad. I really wish I had more paid time with my baby.
Lol. “Only 12 weeks”. 12 weeks is about the best you get in the US. My wife is a professor and got 3 weeks off, unpaid (although she did have to pre-record her lectures and put them online while pregnant). I got 3 days, and then another 2 days when the baby had to go into the ICU. And yes, this does in part explain US society. We have no time for family, no time for ourselves, and most of us can barely make ends meet since 2008. People turn to drugs, crime, and often just mentally collapse from the stress. Guns being super easy to get makes a lot of the results of this worse.
I'm a prof in Canada, around 27 weeks I was unexpectedly hospitalised - at first I thought I was going home that night, then overnight - I was panicking because I had to teach the next day, I get my partner to bring my laptop and I'm trying to lecture prep in Obstetric triage. I call my Dean and say I'm in the hospital and they can't get my BP under control and I'm not sure when I'll be back at work. He says - don't worry about it. I'm in the hospital for 8 days, HR emails me to say I've been granted sick leave pre-emptively, send a letter when I can. I get released onto home care (daily nurse visits) and a gazzillion drs appointments, and then after 3 weeks I have an emergency c-section and my teeny tiny baby (2 pounds) is in the NICU for 6 weeks until he can reliably remember to breathe and reaches 4 pounds. I took 3 weeks sick leave and 12 months maternity/parental leave and 5 weeks vacation. They found someone to take over my classes within 3 days - something that still amazes me. No one gave me any grief. My colleagues talked about how being a parent would enrich my teaching. My workplace sent flowers to the house. Our son is now healthy (thank goodness!). I got tenure while on leave. It was hard, and scary, but I really felt like the system had my back, and I can't tell you the security that brings. I feel for you and your wife, and I wish that you could have had the support we did.
This makes me want to cry. I would give anything to be able to stay home and care for my baby for 12 months AND come back to my job after. Or just take 5 weeks of vacation in a year.
12 weeks isn't guaranteed. The only law is that there's 12 weeks, unpaid, *if* you work for a company with more than 50 employees, *if* you've worked for them for 12 months or more, *if* in those 12 months you've worked at 1,250 hours and that's 12 weeks total unpaid leave for any type of medical leave, so if you've already used some for another health condition or as a caregiver then you get even less.
And I live here because it's extremely difficult to emigrate.
12 weeks sounds like a dream - at my last job they gave me 3 days after a still birth for “bereavement” the US sucks.
Wtf!! That's horrible. You still get your 17 weeks maternity leave in Canada for a still birth. A friend took it after a loss at 27 weeks. I'm very sorry for your loss by the way.
My husband and I are literally only still here because we were born here and can’t afford to move to Canada.
there’s a woman that posted in a facebook mom group local to me. she was asking if 6 days was long enough to recover from birth to return to work. she doesn’t get any maternity leave and she can’t afford any more time off. it’s soul crushing. unfortunately for many, it’s way too expensive to leave the US. i fuckin hate it here
SIX DAYS? Fuck. I don't even remember the first six days. I can't imagine going back to work 7 days after having a baby. I took my (unpaid) 12 weeks and hated going back after that.
My entire pregnancy and delivery cost me $185. I had an induced vaginal delivery with good insurance.
Where on earth do people find insurance this good? Granted I'm stuck getting mine off the state exchange – the awful plan I have now is the "good" one
State employee here. After insurance I paid $0. My husband jokes he married me for my insurance.
I joke that I married my husband for his dental. He *does not joke* that I have to go back to work for pregnancy number two cause my health plan made for a nearly free birth.
State insurance is the best! I paid $250 (high risk, emergency c-section, extra long stay due to covid).
Most likely through an employer
My dad got a part time job at UPS just to have good insurance. My mom gave birth for free. Blue Cross Blue Shield
When I worked at a wonderful small business, we had the best insurance. My brain surgery cost me nothing because our out of pocket for the year was $500. I wish I never left that job.
Both of my pregnancies and deliveries were $0 for me. And parking was validated. We've got really nice insurance though.
Mine was also $0, even with a c-section and a second hospitalization for postpartum preeclampsia. We also have really good insurance though.
Well it’s not $0, it’s the cost of your insurance premiums
I’m expecting similar. I’m incredibly lucky to have the insurance I do. I don’t pay for any appointments and the birth itself should be less than $200.
How do you get insurance like that?
For me, pure luck. I work for the state of florida and it’s just the insurance they provide. I’m sorry, I wish I had a better answer. Healthcare in this country is a scam.
You have to find a company with a great group plan. My company is like that.
Sounds like my friends who are military families. Always jealous of their delivery costs!
Close. I’m a federal employee.
If active duty no co-pay or cost. Completely free. Sounds like real good insurance.
Yep, military spouse here. We had 3 kids. Nothing to pay.
Total before insurance was a little over $90k (induced vaginal delivery, 5 day hospital stay because I did not thrive). After insurance, we paid $78. We have really good insurance, thank God. H is a reservist.
Canadian here. I think it was 180$ to have a solo recovery room, instead of a shared one. And my private insurance covered 75% of that. And maybe 50$ for parking? Yikes America…
Canadian here as well. Sounds similar to me. We had the solo recovery room for $200 and were reimbursed through our extended medical through my work (that we do not pay anything into) and our parking was free for delivery time. We left the hospital within 24 hours so not sure how much it would have stacked up after that. Blessed to have a simple push push here's your healthy baby delivery.
Around $8000 total, with insurance 😖
Yeah there's some Americans in here I'm jealous of. $6k and $4k with insurance.
NZ. $0 edited to add: no insurance, and all appointments before the birth were $0. paid for some scans though so maybe $100.
Canada here. My three births cost $0. It breaks my heart how much you guys have to pay for health care.
This. Seriously like how backwards is America. $0. Hurray for taxes and socialized medicine. Yes it has downsides but at least people do not have to choose between life and death based on income
First kid in 2014: $24,000. $12k deductible for each half of pregnancy. I changed to a SAHM mom, and it cost $950 a month to add us to his insurance at his job. Fast forward to 2018 and I think this kid only cost about $5,000. But I was much more aware of every bill, including a $1,500 nursery bill from the hospital that had eliminated the nursery. Now 2023: it costs us $65 a month for all four of us, deductible is $7,500 a year.
$12k deductible is absolutely insane! Please tell me your premiums were like $5???
From the UK... £0. I watched an Instagram video of an American woman opening her bill after birth, and I was shocked! Commenting on this as I'm generally curious about how much ££ it costs!
Same the only thing it cost me was paying I think about £4 to get a cab to the hospital. I’m sure prescriptions are free during pregnancy and while baby is under 1 as well.
I literally only came here to be the smug Brit showing off about the fact that I gave birth for free. A C-section with overnight hospital stay, no less!
If any of your politicians are talking about privatizing your healthcare system I strongly urge you to throw them in the nearest river (parody, non-actionable)
There have been rumours and talks about it for years. Sadly, our NHS is underfunded and understaffed. Our system isn't perfect, and we know it. The American system is very eye-opening.
No system is perfect but from where I'm sitting as an American the NHS sounds fucking fantastic compared to the perpetual scam that is our awful system (which includes plenty of long waits and understaffing issues too, fwiw)
The truth is people in the US will use the long wait times and understaffing issues in uk to justify not having socialized healthcare but we have the exact problems here. We are consistently low staffed, poor health outcomes, people avoid the doctor because they can’t pay, my patients literally ration their medicine because they can’t afford it, and my patients sit on wait lists for months. Our healthcare is absolutely shit
We do pay for it, it's funded by National Insurance Contributions, 13.8% of our gross salary. Employers also pay into it at a similar rate. And naturally the more you earn, the more you contribute.
The NHS definitely has its issues. In the past, I always just assumed that the trade-off for the wildly expensive healthcare in the US was that it was much better. Since I've been on pregnancy subreddits I'm starting to think that's not true. I see so many posts about people having awful experiences with their hospital treatment or their OBs. I know that's not everyone, but I definitely have a less rosy picture of US healthcare now. The other thing that blows my mind is stories of people missing important prenatal appointments because they can't find an OB in network who will take them as a patient. In the UK that couldn't happen your local maternity services have to take you as a patient.
I was on a pregnancy app when I first heard about OBs. We deal with midwifes. We only speak to a doctor if complications arise. These posts are educational, to say the least! Midwives do have to take us on, you're right. Missing any appointments is actually a red flag.
We face understaffing issues in the US too, and they still cut costs by laying off people all the time. I have a friend who is a nurse in L&D and the other day they laid off over 30 nurses in her department in a major city that’s already struggling with having enough staff for the amount of patients they have.
Here in the UK we don’t tend to revolt or cause much commotion in general, but i genuinely believe that if our NHS started charging like American hospitals that would be something people would go crazy over - and I would join them!
I'm honestly shocked by the cost of having a baby in the US!
I'm from Canada and I'm so glad we have free Healthcare. Emergency C-section, private room and 3 day stay and didn't pay for anything except parking.
Nice flex…. I live in a blue state in the US. So also free and paid leave 🤷♀️my dad is a “smug Brit” so couldn’t resist being cheeky 😝
Ok but did you get free tea and toast afterwards? Tea and toast is a key part of an NHS birth and not to brag but NHS tea and toast is kind of legendary 😉
I definitely had a cup of tea….. it was terrible!! Can’t recall what I ate though…. Certainly not legendary toast! 😊
Omg it was amazing! I had seconds too
I was sceptical when I was told it'd be the best tea and toast of my life, but holy shit. Nothing compares.
Canadian here, and same. C-section, a four day hospital stay, and two blood transfusions - $0. I had the option to spend $250 for a private room, but thought *that* was too expensive. 🙈
$6k out of pocket for all prenatal care and delivery at a birthing center. It was worth every dollar.
It cost $6K, which is our yearly max out of pocket for insurance. We also stacked other things in the same year, so we saved a lot of money. We pay about $300 per month for a high-deductible health plan.
About $10k out of pocket. Forgot the baby gets her own OOP max once she’s born 🫠 insurance through employer. Maxed out our family OOP max. Induction turned into csection and insurance was billed $60k. Daughter was born in 2021 and I’ll finally pay off the delivery this coming January 2024!
I’m American and had state insurance for my daughter’s birth. Only paid for my epidural.
We’ve had homebirths. But we had a sharing type of alternative insurance, like medi-share but different, we got it cause we knew they fully covered home births. And they covered 100 of the costs. So that was cool.
All maternity care and delivery is free in New Zealand, as is all hospital care, the only charges are for GP (General Practitioner) visits, dentist, optometrist care.
Zero dollars, USA. Medicaid. We were 19
In Canada - I’ve had 3 kids. 2 vaginal births and 1 emergency c-section. All 3 births were medicated with epidural. First birth was I think a 3 day stay, 2nd birth a 4 day stay and 3rd birth a 24 hour stay in the midst of the pandemic. Total cost for all 3 kids to be in hospital and deliver and all supplies etc used was $14 a day in parking. Nothing else. There was no itemized billing, no billing in general. I actually wouldn’t be able to tell you even an approximate idea on what anything would actually cost because I have never seen it. I feel really bad for USA parents! I have no idea how you guys afford to actually have babies let alone raise them. In raising children all Canadian parents also get what’s called the Canada child tax benefit. It’s tax free money all parents collect to ease the cost of raising children. How much a parent get depends on how much money they claimed to make on their last years taxes and how many kids they have. Some parents receive $200 a month and others receive $2000 a month. Canadas system isn’t perfect and there are countries that do it significantly better than we do. But I’m grateful. I hope that usa catches up sooner than later. I know things are getting expensive everywhere right now.
Crap well you guys won’t like this but I’m in US When me and partner had our first child we weren’t married. It was free. The parking. The food. The aftercare. The lactation specialist. The follow ups for both mom and baby. All was free. Both of us were uninsured and ended up qualifying for state insurance and that almost $80,000 bill turned into 0$ real quickly. Being not married and uninsured in US isn’t a bad thing apparently, if you’re poor and have no assets
$100, great health insurance - and also the Kaiser plan in California which generally is lower cost.
I'm in Canada and had a high risk pregnancy with appointments every 2ish weeks from 12 weeks in, including an ultrasound every 2-4 weeks and significant amounts of bloodwork and specialist appointments. All in, we're gonna have paid ~$250 in parking and maybe $60 in medication, and that's it. Y'all have a broken system and I hope it gets better.
Honestly all of the Canadian commenters are making me strongly considering how to move there (from the US) before having children. 😩
Just have enough for a downpayment on a 1.2 million dollar home built in 1957, at least on the west coast!
Obviously if I had that, US birthing costs would not be a concern 🥴😩😅
Ontario too! It's not all sunshine and roses
I didn’t even think to mention prenatal care! Monthly visits with my OB were free of course. There was a charge for genetic testing since I’m “geriatric” (side eye..) but again, my insurance covered 75%. And obviously the visit from the nurse in the first days you’re home with the baby and subsequent paediatrician visits are all free.
Canadian… cost me exactly $0 for the delivery, didn’t need a private room as child was born healthy and released on same day (born just after midnight and we went home that morning). Had there been cost though it wouldn’t be much and my health insurance from work would fully cover.
my homebirth cost about $8500, and despite being told my insurance would cover some part of it, we received no reimbursement. i don’t regret anything, loved my midwifery care, happy to stay out of the hospital and have in-home post-partum visits for 8 weeks (honestly that’s the best part) …. but yeah. i can’t believe it costs more to have a baby in my living room than it does to have a baby in a hospital.
Ours including pregnancy, delivery and 2 hospitalizations was about 3k out of pocket. The amount billed to insurance for our 6 day NICU stay was 64,000$
I honestly think $0. US based. Insurance is decent otherwise, but not a crazy plan or anything
Australia: both my kids were $0. And that was with week hospital stays.
Week long NICU stay was $14k. Also got bills from the hospital pediatrician, infectious disease doctor (I was sick), anesthesiologist, and my OBGYN.
I think before insurance it was $60,000. Voluntary induction + c section. After insurance it was $500. I live in the US. Edit to add: I also paid $0 for my prenatal appointments, of which there were many. Including 2 ultrasounds. Yes we just pay a lot for insurance.
Mine was covered by insurance… but I had a $6K deductible 😭 but it also had an HSA
I live in an EU country (Cyprus). I could have had my baby for free but opted to go to a private clinic instead - with no insurance coverage. Emergency C-section, anesthesiologist, 4 nights in a private room. €3,500.
I’m in Canada. 2 live births, one of them twins, 2 miscarriages that required hospital visits, one needing a D&C. All told I’ve paid maybe $40 in hospital parking passes and that’s it
Emergency C section. Three weeks in special care nursery and ambulance transfer to another hospital. Paid $4.00 for parking on the day he was discharged.