American health care bill

[nightkd]

I am glad I am not American tbh and I get free health care

Out of interest how much does having a baby cost medically

I'm from the UK and I miss the NHS.....A lot.

We're uninsured, no-one will insure us now because the pregnancy is viewed as a 'pre-existing condition'...We would have had to have maternity care for a year BEFORE we CONCEIVED with most places and we were told it just wasn't worth it, because the cost of the insurance, plus paying the deductible for any care, plus the co-pay would be about the same, if not more, than not having insurance.

If we had gone with the MW we've ended up with, initially, it would've cost us $2300 for all prenatal visits, the birth and postnatal visits (she said there were something like 3, or more if I needed them). We've got lab costs for the initial bloodwork which totalled (if the *******s had worked it out right) $600ish. Ultrasounds are about $100-$200 - we've gone for a couple of private ones (one while I was in the UK, as I had to go private) and I've had one medical one.

Unfortunately we went with an OBGYN to start with and so we did pay a few extra fees for the appointments with him, they were about $130 each time...As I say, if we'd gone with the MW initially we obviously wouldn't have had those.

So in the end (if everything goes to plan - I'm having a homebirth) we would end up paying about $3500 for baby.

The costs for the hospital we were looking at were roughly the same for a vaginal delivery or a C-Section ($2500ish) it's just the costs of the medical professional on top of that...It would be about $5000 here for a hospital delivery.

 

[Chaos]

I think someone told me or posted here somewhere than an emergency c-section is over $20K

I forgot about that! Yeah, it is!

Emergency C-Section here is $2500! I've looked into it just incase..

That's probably *just* the C-section, meaning the surgeons time. You gotta count the anaesthesia (be it epi or general), your 2 day minimum stay in hospital with care/room and board. Any drugs they give you, room and board for the baby, any tests/vaccs they give and so on.

I had the minimum (well vaginal birth with Epi) with no complications and as mentioned before that alone was 10,000. (we paid 10%) The epi/anaesthesiologists time was near on 2,000 its self. The paediatrician who came in, looked at her for 5 mins and left again charged us I think it was 500. I aint even gonna get in to the room and board for the baby seeing as she didn't even leave my bloody room.

Lots of hidden costs.

 

[Vici]

I'm glad someone asked this q as i'd been wondering the same myself!! Thank you for some of your explanations girls x

 

[pinkmummy]

I know we all complain about the NHS and I am guilty of it also. But I am sooooo gladd we have it.

Hope someone from America can clarify this but I was under the impression that if you needed life saving surgery and you didn't have insurance they wouldn't do it What sort of life is that to live?

Its not controlling your body it is looking after everyone not just 'higher class' people xx

 

[nicholatmn]

I know we all complain about the NHS and I am guilty of it also. But I am sooooo gladd we have it.

Hope someone from America can clarify this but I was under the impression that if you needed life saving surgery and you didn't have insurance they wouldn't do it What sort of life is that to live?

Its not controlling your body it is looking after everyone not just 'higher class' people xx

Sometimes if you're insured, they can tell you no and you'd have to pay for it. Like people with cancer. My aunt had breast cancer and her insurance company told her they're not paying for chemo anymore. So she had to pay out of pocket or not receive treatment.

 

[pinkmummy]

That is awful x

 

[Chris77]

I know we all complain about the NHS and I am guilty of it also. But I am sooooo gladd we have it.

Hope someone from America can clarify this but I was under the impression that if you needed life saving surgery and you didn't have insurance they wouldn't do it What sort of life is that to live?

Its not controlling your body it is looking after everyone not just 'higher class' people xx

No, they won't turn you away. The hospital I work for turns away noone. They treat everyone regardless of your inability to pay. What would usually happen in that case, is the hospital would help you get on Medicaid or Medicare to pay for the procedure. Or a hospital will transfer you to another hospital that will do procedures on people with no insurance. Or they'll do the procedure anyway, and then give you a whopper of a bill! I actually don't know of any cases where someone has been turned away from life saving surgery because of no insurance. I'm sure it's happened though....but I would sue the pants off that hospital. I can only speak from what I've seen and heard from where I live.

DH bought AFLAC for us (it's a very small payment) and it's in addition to the Blue Cross insurance we receive from our jobs. It supplements the policy, so godforbid one of us gets cancer, we won't have to pay out of pocket for anything.

 

[Chris77]

I know we all complain about the NHS and I am guilty of it also. But I am sooooo gladd we have it.

Hope someone from America can clarify this but I was under the impression that if you needed life saving surgery and you didn't have insurance they wouldn't do it What sort of life is that to live?

Its not controlling your body it is looking after everyone not just 'higher class' people xx

Sometimes if you're insured, they can tell you no and you'd have to pay for it. Like people with cancer. My aunt had breast cancer and her insurance company told her they're not paying for chemo anymore. So she had to pay out of pocket or not receive treatment.

That's disgusting!! Insurance companies are really unbelievable.

 

[Chaos]

I know we all complain about the NHS and I am guilty of it also. But I am sooooo gladd we have it.

Hope someone from America can clarify this but I was under the impression that if you needed life saving surgery and you didn't have insurance they wouldn't do it What sort of life is that to live?

Its not controlling your body it is looking after everyone not just 'higher class' people xx

No, they won't turn you away. The hospital I work for turns away noone. They treat everyone regardless of your inability to pay. What would usually happen in that case, is the hospital would help you get on Medicaid or Medicare to pay for the procedure. Or a hospital will transfer you to another hospital that will do procedures on people with no insurance. Or they'll do the procedure anyway, and then give you a whopper of a bill! I actually don't know of any cases where someone has been turned away from life saving surgery because of no insurance. I'm sure it's happened though....but I would sue the pants off that hospital. I can only speak from what I've seen and heard from where I live.

DH bought AFLAC for us (it's a very small payment) and it's in addition to the Blue Cross insurance we receive from our jobs. It supplements the policy, so godforbid one of us gets cancer, we won't have to pay out of pocket for anything.

I do like how they don't turn you away if you can't pay. As I mentioned before health care is a right, not a privilege .. but in bold is exactly the point the article I referenced earlier made. 62% of personal bankruptcy in America are due to medical bills.

Kinda sad really.

 

[Chris77]

Absolutely! No argument there. The good thing about medical bills though is that you can pay like $5 a month and they can't say anything or send it to collection because you're still paying on it. (at least in my experience) I work in Patient Accounts and we have patients that have quite a big bill. They just pay $5 a month. There's no interest on medical bills so it allows you to do that.

Some hospitals, if you really can't pay, (like the hospital I work for) will just write off the expense as charity.

 

[Chaos]

Ya, we're still paying off the delivery bill for the baby. I think we have like 200 bucks to go. Our hospital wanted the lot paid with in 6 month tho.

 

[Duffy]

I was watching the news and some of the stuff that was pass in the bill went under the radio.... They are taxing tanning salons 10 percent and a lot of owners are really upset and feel it will effect there business. Orginally it was botox they were going to tax but a bunch of doctor fought it. Also on all vending machines a calorie sheet is to be posted and at any fast food joint (if they own more then 20?) if I understood that one correctly.

My whole pregnancy and delivery was not paid for by me because I was put on state health that paid for it, I'm very thankful for programs available to lower in-come people like me. I wish they had more in dental (another story.lol)... Okay that sums up my saying it this post.

 

[tasha41]

My OH met someone through work with 4 fingers, he had previously lived in the States and had cut 2 off during an accident-- the doctor gave him a quote to reattach each finger and he had to choose ring finger or middle finger because he couldn't afford both.

 

[pinkmummy]

My OH met someone through work with 4 fingers, he had previously lived in the States and had cut 2 off during an accident-- the doctor gave him a quote to reattach each finger and he had to choose ring finger or middle finger because he couldn't afford both.

x

 

[Minstermind]

Yeah, I heard about that. And he chose his ring finger so he'd be able to continue wearing his wedding ring, from what I understand.

 

[nightkd]

I think someone told me or posted here somewhere than an emergency c-section is over $20K

I forgot about that! Yeah, it is!

Emergency C-Section here is $2500! I've looked into it just incase..

That's probably *just* the C-section, meaning the surgeons time. You gotta count the anaesthesia (be it epi or general), your 2 day minimum stay in hospital with care/room and board. Any drugs they give you, room and board for the baby, any tests/vaccs they give and so on.

I had the minimum (well vaginal birth with Epi) with no complications and as mentioned before that alone was 10,000. (we paid 10%) The epi/anaesthesiologists time was near on 2,000 its self. The paediatrician who came in, looked at her for 5 mins and left again charged us I think it was 500. I aint even gonna get in to the room and board for the baby seeing as she didn't even leave my bloody room.

Lots of hidden costs.

I know there are a lot of hidden costs, but it's a darnsight less than people THINK it is. The hospital we were looking at is a teaching hospital (so it's generally cheaper) and I'm looking at the UNINSURED prices, which can actually work out at better value than paying for the stupid insurance (DH explained what it covered last night, but I wasn't paying attention ) for a year previous to conceiving and then all the co-pay etc etc... Some hospitals do deals where you can walk in and say you're uninsured and they will give you discounts, some only as long as you can pay within a certain timeframe of course, and work out what's best for you.

DH's Uncle paid $2000 in total for the C-Section birth of his daughter, because he planned it all way in advance. There are ways to do things like that for 'cheap'...

The thing that scares me is, if our plans fall down around us! Eg the costs I said about earlier - we'd still have to pay $2300 for the MW, even if I ended up in hospital for a C-Section, so we'd end up paying for the C-Section etc etc TOO...If I was in the UK and my homebirth didn't go quite to plan, I'd have the reassurance that if I needed an emergency operation and to be rushed to hospital by ambulance (there's a freakin' deal on with something really random where you get a free ambulance ride =/) we wouldn't have to be worrying about "Shit, how much is this going to cost?!"...It's ridiculous.

Anyway, I still don't get what the health bill is actually about so I have no strong opinions about it either way. The US needs to sort out their healthcare one way or the other and I don't understand how Canada (America's hat) has figured out how to do it, but America still hasn't DH just said we'd basically be forced to get insurance (tbh neither of us understand what it's about yet...and googling will just throw up a load of speculation I'm sure)....which we don't have atm because I'm preg and CAN'T get it and the insurance we looked at was stupidly expensive.

x

 

[aliss]

I don't understand how Canada (America's hat) has figured out how to do it,

Uh thanks.

 

[nightkd]

Wow, THAT was what stood out to you from my exceedingly long and rambly post?



Hey all I'm saying is America sucks in some respects and needs to learn from it's neighbours.

 

[morri]

Lol Isnt the US not just the nether regions of Canada?

 

[nightkd]

Lol Isnt the US not just the nether regions of Canada?

Looking at a map Canada/US/Mexico looks kind of like a dancing fat lady wearing the US as her big granny pants