11 ms·
Kate Middleton’s ‘luxury’ birth cost less than the average U.S. birth
- kjgkjhfkjf 9y agoWhat do folks in the US with health insurance have to pay? Insurance companies get huge discounts on the artificially inflated listed prices.
- votepaunchy 9y agoOur out-of-pocket has been $175 including delivery and postpartum care. We’ve needed to stay 48 hours in recovery for medical reasons at no additional cost (cesarean recovery allows 96 hours). The article conflates per-night and per-visit costs.
- chx 9y agoIn "normal" cases, roughly, 500 USD or less if you have insurance. But it's really awfully complicated -- often the baby gets a separate bill too to muddle the waters. The ACA ("Obamacare") set a cap on in-network yearly out of pocket payments on family plans which, if memory serves, was around 11k in 2017. A complicated birth can hit this! Consider the costs of NICU, for example. (Oh and if an NICU nurse reads this: thank you, thank you, thank you for the life of my niece.) As to what the insurers pays, I do not know.
- smcl 9y agoThe baby gets a bill?
- chx 9y agoYES! I haven't the luck to this because I am Canadian (actually, Canadian-Hungarian) but I heard from my friends across the border and read the stories. For eg. https://community.babycenter.com/post/a46638358/insurance_issue_baby_billed_separately https://community.babycenter.com/post/a46638358/insurance_is...
- ubernostrum 9y agoFor services provided to the baby, yes. The expectation is that the baby will be added to the insurance plan effective as of birth, so it's correct to bill services provided to the baby as... services provided to the baby.
- smcl 9y agoOh I understand how the situation arises ... but billing a baby for being born is never going sound normal to me.
- TomMarius 9y agoI think it's not the birth itself, it's the post-birth services.
- Symbiote 9y agoTo most Europeans, billing a child is never going to seem normal. And that includes dental and optical treatments. Braces and glasses are free, at least the basic type. (I've generalized all of Europe; there may be exceptions in some countries.)
- alxlaz 9y agoAm European, can confirm. The idea that the first thing a kid gets in this world is a bill for healthcare services is amusing in a chilly sort of way. I mean, it's not like the poor kid had a choice in the matter of whether he's born or not. What happens if the parents can't afford it? Does he, like, get to go back in until the parents pay? If he had an ailment, and it got cured, do they give it back to him? Do they put him in suspended animation :-)?
- TomMarius 9y agoIt's the same in Europe though. The hospital will send a bill to the insurance company (usually there is one default and you can switch your children to another any time) in the name of the child.
- partycoder 9y agoThe baby is a patient too. In fact, it is not rare to have a baby referred to as "the patient".
- grahamburger 9y agoThe baby doesn't 'get a bill' in the sense that I think you are suggesting (based on this on your comments down thread.) The parents get a bill with line items listed for services provided for the baby.
- ensiferum 9y agoFirst the baby gets a bill, then they can also open a bank account and start saving for their university tuitions and future home loan.
- baldeagle 9y agoEach person tends to have a max yearly limit. By billing the baby separately, the yearly max for the mom and the baby can be hit (or the family max). This is especially important as the mom may have already received a good amount of charges leading up to the birth.
- sitharus 9y agoThe article suggests the end payment is around $3,000 after insurance, which is still more than the ~US$2,000 + 500/night you’d pay for a non-resident birth where I live. I’d be free if you were a resident, unless you want a premium room with a bed for your partner to stay in when it would be ~US$300/night.
- throwaway2016a 9y agoThis is completely anecdotal of course but... my insurance covered all but $700 of the birth. The total cost was over $15k. What it did not pay full for was ultrasounds. Which aren't technical part of the birth. They only paid full for the first one and we needed 5, which was about $300 each out of pocket for me. But I hear my experience is not typical. Usually out of pocket costs (even with insurance) are much higher in the US.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Xuper 9y agoNah, just millions of people paid as well. It's like saying education is "free".
- axefrog 9y agoBut it's ok for taxes to pay for roads and garbage collection?
- Xuper 9y agoI did not say it's a bad idea.
- TrickyRick 9y agoIt's OK for taxes to pay for anything, you just have to remember that just because you don't swipe your credit card or get a bill it doesn't mean that something is "free".
- ItsMe000001 9y agoI would like to differ and make the claim that most of it actually is indeed "free", since we are all living very comfortably off a huge inheritance and network effects: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16912315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16912315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16889577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16889577
- 2muchcoffeeman 9y agoThis is just disingenuous. And perhaps the wrong way to think about it. Sure, it's not 'free'. But when you pay taxes, everyone doesn't pay equal amounts. Those who are able to earn more money, pay more taxes. Those who can't pay less. But no one is left to fend for themselves. Even the poor can get treatment. We're also not paying anything like the insane prices you pay in America.
- kmonsen 9y agoThis is not true, the US spends as much government money per capita on health care as the UK (see for example http://uk.businessinsider.com/us-spends-more-public-money-on-healthcare-than-sweden-or-canada-2017-4?r=US&IR=T http://uk.businessinsider.com/us-spends-more-public-money-on...)
- rdiddly 9y agoA midwife delivered my kid in the bedroom for two orders of magnitude less money. Not to mention, thousands of years of doing it without even a midwife was somehow good enough to keep the species alive long enough for hospitals to be invented so people could think having a baby requires one. EDIT: Sorry to distract you with that last bit. A midwife, you're paying for a license and a sterile pair of scissors. It works fine. The idea that you need a huge medical apparatus and to pay $10 grand for it, to do something humans evolved to do, is pretty FUDdish.
- eurleif 9y agoWhich shows that a high infant mortality rate is insufficient to extinct a species, not that home birth is safe.
- rdiddly 9y agoThat why it says "not to mention." It's an additional/supplemental point on top of the main one about my child's birth, which shows that at least that one home birth was safe. And cheap.
- eurleif 9y agoNo, one wasn't safe. One was risky, but luckily happened to end all right. Just like driving drunk is unsafe even if you make it home in one piece. Safety is statistical, not anecdotal. Here are the statistics: http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/01/homebirth-midwives-reveal-death-rate-450-higher-than-hospital-birth-announce-that-it-shows-homebirth-is-safe.html http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/01/homebirth-midwives-reveal...
- Angostura 9y agoIn my youth once changed a ceiling light standing on a swivel office chair that was on a desk. I suffered no injuries. That doesn't mean it was safe.
- rdiddly 9y ago
- foreigner 9y agoThe chart is really misleading. It's labeled: "Here are the average 2015 prices for a vaginal birth, not including costs for care before and after giving birth" but for the UK it lists the price of the royal baby's fancy birth. A normal birth in the UK is free! My daughter was born by C-section in the UK. Mum and baby stayed in the hospital for a few days to recover from the C-section. This would have been completely free but they would have had to share a room with 3 other mums and newborns. That's not so nice so we opted to pay for a private room. The cost for a private room in a hospital in the UK was the equivalent of $100 per night! In a HOSPITAL! Coming from the US that blew my mind.
- hlidotbe 9y agoWell that's kind of the point of the article, comparing an average birth in the US vs an over-the-top one in the UK
- dogma1138 9y agoCost out of pocket and actual costs aren’t the same thing. The overall health care is likely cheaper but you do pay for it your entire adult life. So while they charged you $100 during birth (btw that’s extremely cheap a private room in a central London hospital without insurance copay is a few £100’s a night) you pay for that room from your first paycheck to the last.
- mcv 9y agoBut you also do that in the US, you just don't benefit from it until you are 65. The US does have socialised medicine: Medicare, and it costs as much as the health care systems of other countries, only it takes care of only a small part of the population, whereas in other countries it takes care of everybody.
- isostatic 9y agoMedicare costs the US about the same as the NHS costs the UK -- £1500 per citizen. That's not per medicare citizen, that's per citizen. The NHS covers everyone (although if you want fancier healthcare you can pay and go private).
- Symbiote 9y agoHere's the price list for the private hospital they used. Note things like "If your baby requires transitional or specialist care, this is free if they are entitled to NHS care and is chargeable if they are not." -- British (and EU etc) patients can pay for the luxury private room and so on, but if they unfortunately need significant extra care, public healthcare will cover that. https://2ic5hf2u26uo1u64w43h7rt0-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/The-Lindo-Wing-maternity-prices-2018-1.pdf https://2ic5hf2u26uo1u64w43h7rt0-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...
- indemnity 9y agoWe paid NZ$75. This was for the hospital car parking for 3 days to visit my wife while she recovered in maternity ward in a private room. Everything else was free, from the first scan, through to delivery, and the standard of care was good. Didn't need specialists, but if we did that would have been free too. We have private health insurance as well (NZ$300/month to cover the family), but in public health care is good enough, private is for when you want to get treated faster for less critical things.
- lostlogin 9y agoAnd that car park is a disaster. I’m guessing you refer to Auckland Hospital. If you are, wait until midnight and the gates open and it becomes free. You can tell when it’s going to be free soon as half the cars have people sitting in them.
- nkkollaw 9y agoMy American ex-wife was afraid about this, then she found out that in Italy you pay 0. We are really lucky.
- mmikeff 9y agoThe point I rarely see discussed in these ongoing debates about the best way to pay for healthcare is the benefit of knowing what you have to pay. As I understand it in the US even with health insurance there is likely to be an additional payment required by the patient for treatment, and the cost of that payment is generally unknown upfront. With the NHS is the UK I can be pretty confident that no matter what medication my doctor prescribes that when I collect it from the pharmacy it will cost me exactly £8.60 I can also be confident that when I go for an appointment to see my GP that it will cost me nothing. This doesn't mean that is is free, as my National Insurance contributions are substantial, but that I know that I don't bear any financial risk from going to see a doctor. I can't imagine what it would be like to have to worry about whether going to see a doctor about this mole that's changed a bit might land me with an unknown bill. Or to worry that my daughters peanut allergy could see me paying hundreds of dollars when her adrenaline pens expires.
- johnday 9y ago> This doesn't mean that is is free, as my National Insurance contributions are substantial, but that I know that I don't bear any financial risk from going to see a doctor. In fact, it's more important than that. Because you pay NI upfront, it relieves the feeling of burden that you might otherwise feel towards the NHS, which actually makes you more willing to go to the doctor. This means you're more likely to catch minor things before they become major problems (further reducing NHS costs).
- mmikeff 9y agoExactly. It's bad enough to be worried that you might have skin cancer, then to worry so much about the cost that you don't go see the doctor can only compound the issue. I would guess (and don't know) that if you had super amazing insurance then maybe it covers all these unexpected extras. But for those that do not have that level of cover the decision must go something like: I'm worried that this mole looks bad, if I go and see a doctor then I might get a nasty bill, but if I don't go and see a doctor then it might get worse and when it does I'll have no choice but to go, oh and the cost of the treatment could bankrupt my family
- nealdt 9y agoAlso worth pointing out that in the UK, we were offered three choices of births. Home, water or hospital. We started off in the birthing pools until mum decided she wanted the epidural after all. I thought all three of options were quite luxurious and service by the midwives was second to none! If I think about our decision making process for a car-seat (oh god, let's go for the best - just in case), I am glad that no-one has put a monetary value on giving birth.
- oliwarner 9y agoI'd never thought of it like that, but we did exactly the same thing with the child seat. I daren't imagine what would happen to the state of neonatal care if it were privatised here.
- HenryBemis 9y agoI remember a similar article [1] discussed a few months back here in HN. And I have found the dialogue of the community [2] to be very informative. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/16/why-does-it-cost-32093-just-to-give-birth-in-america https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/16/why-does-it-... [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16189976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16189976
- readhn 9y agoUsa here, with decent health insurance at the time. C-section birth, plus 4 day stay at the hospital (Max included allowed by insurance). Total billed by the hospital was something crazy around 11-16k? I forget actual number. It was a decent stay/food but nothing crazy over the top about it. After all said and done we paid $1100 for our hospital stay. I was happy it was this "cheap". P.s. oh yes, also hospital car parking -I think I was there total for 5 days so $12x5=$60.
- jlebrech 9y agoThe Duchess of Cambridge: she no longer has her maiden name.
- kjgkjhfkjf 9y agoSales tax in the UK is 20%. A gallon of gas is >$7. Salaries are miniscule compared to the US. SF/NYC real estate is a bargain compared to London. And the NHS, well hmm...
- Max_Mustermann 9y agoHow is the UK's 29k USD median income a year "minuscule" compared to the 31k from the US? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...
- hamilyon2 9y agoIn Russia giving birth is free, as is whatever-long stay is hospital (in shared room). Of course, you can have private room, where father, mother and child can stay for as little as 100$ a night. Actually, state pays mother about 7000$ for second child in addition to all normal allowances and benefits.