The Price Tag For Giving Birth \ stacker news ~charts

The Price Tag For Giving Birth

4104 sats \ 21 comments \ @jakoyoh629 25 Feb charts

https://www.axios.com/local/san-francisco/2023/06/27/cost-give-birth-vaginal-c-section-california

https://www.fairhealth.org/fh-trackers/cost-of-giving-birth

https://www.statista.com/chart/20657/average-hospital-admission-cost-for-giving-birth/

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619 sats \ 3 replies \ @anon 25 Feb

Listen no one would argue that US health costs are too high, but I know tons of people who have had kids (including myself) and none have paid more than $1000 out of pocket at most. I'm highly skeptical of this data. We paid zero out of pocket with a narrow network employer sponsored health plan. Lets left side of the bell curve this, we see stats all the time about how the vast majority of Americans cannot afford a $500 emergency bill, if that's true then how are tens of millions of parents paying $11-15k per birth? This doesn't pass the smell test. 99% of Americans simply could not afford that, and its not like a house where you can get a subsidized tax deductible loan to otherwise afford the unaffordable. The only way I can see this even being remotely accurate is if that is the total cost to the system, not the patient's out of pocket, e.g. your health plan pays the hospital $11k but you pay only say $500-1000 out of pocket.

31 sats \ 0 replies \ @nkmg1c_ventures 25 Feb

Medical bureaucracy/EHR stuff in the US insane and I'm sure exists simply to make people even more money. These numbers probably aren't what people see in their IRL billed experience, but due to how it's all accounted for with insurance etc, these numbers probably do move between accounts in some kinda double entry manner. That 11k-15k is probably taken from some database / spreadsheet where it's all the underlying billable items between providers etc.

25 sats \ 0 replies \ @kr 25 Feb

appreciate the perspective!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 26 Feb

All the prices are fake in the US medical system, but you do have to factor in how much people pay for insurance that covers child birth in addition to the out of pocket.

You're right, though, that this is probably some "cost to the system". Again, though, those prices are fake and circular and are basically a big grift, so the resulting figure isn't very helpful.

32 sats \ 2 replies \ @kr 25 Feb

is it typical in the US for these expenses to be paid out of pocket?

207 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 25 Feb

no, only a small portion of that would be out of pocket, if people had to pay that out of pocket either no one would have kids or 99.9% would instantly declare bankruptcy the moment they did. This data is either incorrect or it has to be the total system-wide cost and not out of pocket cost. I 100% agree with the general premise that US healthcare costs are too high, but this is still misleading.

69 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 25 Feb

I also found the values too high for ordinary people to afford. If that were the case, no one would have children. I went to see the data source and it says:

The interactive heat maps below show state-specific and national median charge and allowed amounts for vaginal deliveries and C-sections. Inpatient and outpatient facility and professional costs are included. Services include the delivery itself (e.g., pharmacy, nursery, labor and delivery room, medical and surgical supplies, room and board for the mother), anesthesia, fetal nonstress tests, ultrasounds, laboratory work and breast pump. The data come from the September 2022 release of the vaginal delivery and C-section FH® Total Treatment Cost benchmarks.

Median: The midpoint of the distribution of values below and above which there is an equal number of values.

Charge amount: The amount charged to a patient who is uninsured or obtaining an out-of-network service.

Allowed amount: The total fee negotiated between an insurance plan and a provider for an in-network service. Includes both the portion to be paid by the plan member and the portion to be paid by the plan.

10 sats \ 5 replies \ @KLT 25 Feb

We’re considering home birth next time but outside of that, we use Crowdhealth, definitely worth checking out if you’re a Bitcoiner.

https://www.joincrowdhealth.com/

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @JesseJames 25 Feb

You mean they take Bitcoin?

10 sats \ 3 replies \ @KLT 26 Feb

If you have a health event, you pay the first $500 dollars and the community of fellow bitcoiners in Crowd Health fund the rest. Really interesting model that we’ve been using for a year plus. The CEO has been on the Bitcoin Standard Podcast which I’ll link below and is pretty outspoken about the broken health insurance industry and how he wants to bring bitcoin to health care. Worth a listen if you have time.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/144-fiat-healthcare-crowdhealth-with-andy-schoonover/id1403202032?i=1000587962610

https://www.joincrowdhealth.com/bitcoin

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @JesseJames 26 Feb

OK, that's smart that they keep the stash on BTC/LN (that's money earned right there with halving coming up) but did you pay them with lightning or fiat?

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @KLT 26 Feb

Fiat currently, but it’s looking like this year any health event we have or that we fund for others will be able to do that via lightning so the app is going to get a native bitcoin wallet as well. I believe they’re working with Breeze so it’s all pretty cool. I also like that they fund preventative care procedures like Dexa Scans as well as send bitcoin books for free and they talk about eating meat etc.

My wife was skeptical at first but now she’s glad we have them as we slowly phase out of using regular health insurance a year and a half later. If I’m paying that monthly fee for health care, it’s nice to know that I’m helping other bitcoiners as they too have been helping me with my health events. They’re at 6,000 or so members now I believe. I do not work for them or anything haha. Just a fan and see how health insurance now is so scammy.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @JesseJames 26 Feb

That's great, really worth considering. Thanks for sharing.

11 sats \ 1 reply \ @freetx 25 Feb

I'm not entirely convinced its necessary to go to a hospital to give birth.

I mean its something we managed to do for a few million years without paying for it. Yes I know complications happen, yes I know childbirth can be dangerous....but I think we've largely been marketed the idea that its the norm.

2 sats \ 0 replies \ @erict875 25 Feb

With today's sedentary lifestyles, seeking expert supervision is very often necessary...

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @erict875 25 Feb

It's probably that high because of subsidies, just like education (to a certain degree)

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 26 Feb

Half of births in USA are covered by Medicaid

Medicaid is terrible insurance. Many doctors won’t accept Medicaid because of low rates of reimbursement

https://www.vox.com/2021/6/7/22522479/medicaid-health-insurance-doctors-billing-research

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TwoLargePizzas 25 Feb

The real cost of giving birth is spending the next 18 years of your life raising a child 😂

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @OriginalSize 25 Feb

This kind of data should be normalized to income or cost of living.

I'm a bit concerned that ~charts is an entry point to SN for lies.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @oliverweiss 25 Feb

Do you have in the US something like a birth bonus? In (some) EU countries it is actually quite common to get a one time payment of few hundred euros after babies are born.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @koqoo 25 Feb

the *High Price Tag