Babies Are Expensive, Hospital Edition

By | October 29th, 2007 at 7:32 am

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I’m pretty sure that none of us are having babies in order to make money (are we? if you are, I’m not sure I want to know you), counting on future income or whatever. In fact, most of us accept the fact that kids are pretty much a loss financially. A pretty big one, too. And the cash drain begins before they are even born! (Isn’t parenting fun?) So why it’s news that babies cost money, I’m not sure, but here it is:

Babies cost money. Oh yeah, we covered that. Having a hospital birth? The average cost for that in the U.S. is $7600, including prenatal care. Not that it’s all out of your pocket. Your average expense is only about 8% of that if you’re privately insured.

Interestingly, the cost for women on Medicaid to give birth is less than that for women who have private medical insurance, though the prenatal care expense is about the same. Hmm. (Can you say, “There’s something wrong with this picture?” And on Medicaid, the average out-of-pocket expense is only 1% of the total cost. Hmm again. 

Care to draw some conclusions from this information? Here we go:

1. Blah blah blah U.S. healthcare system.

2. Blah blah blah gouging by U.S. health insurance companies.

3. Home birth blah blah blah.

There. Are we all clear on that?  

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