Hellobee Boards

@mrsmate: I guess the question though is how much did your insurance company pay? I'm guessing they still would have paid the ludicrous prices cited in the article, even if the costs weren't passed on to you. It's a sad story.

A friend shared this on Facebook with the comment that they are choosing to deliver with NHS for these reasons (they're Americans living in London). She had many scans and tests in the last weeks that ended up being a very large bill for her. She doesn't want a bill, whereas I would be a bit terrified to be giving up my creature comforts to birth with NHS. I don't think universal healthcare is the answer, but I do think some standard is needed. I think it's easy for someone like me who paid <$200 for all of my maternity care to not understand how devastating medical bills can be.

I have excellent insurance, thank heavens. My estimated total for an uncomplicated vaginal delivery is around $300 (via my insurance), and maybe a bit more for a c-section. This includes all pre-natal care, my delivery, and both mine and the baby's hospital stay. The pre-insurance price for the c-section is over $30,000. However, I've had a few extra scans this pregnancy, been forced to speak with a geneticist at the MFM office, and just got the bill for that. It was $664, I have to pay $34.00. The only reason my bills are so low is because we've met our deductible for the year due to a hand surgery. Otherwise, we would be paying around $2000. I'm for Universal Health Care for a number of reasons, but even if we don't achieve that, it would be great if the prices were standardized across the board.

I think what shocked and depressed me the most is that for both girls, I was allowed to negotiate the payment by paying early and in full. It felt very strange that the hospitals would knock their charges to me in half because I paid within the first 30 days.

The only reason I was willing to do this used car bargaining is that the cheaper our bills, the better start I could give each girl.

I work on health care reform, and study this stuff for a living and it still baffles me at times. I know that our ins company (one of the blues) refused to cover M's hospital charges for over six months and it wasn't until I explained what I do for a living that all the issues and demands magically evaporated. Why do you think that happened?!

@meredithNYC: You're right, nothing is free. We pay higher taxes in Canada, but i really have no problems knowing that it's paying for social programs that is for the benefit of all Canadians. I have an uncle who is a low-income earner and discovered he had gall bladder cancer. He had surgery and was in the hospital for one week. He paid nothing. All he could say was how grateful he was for being in Canada because he knew how much it would cost had he been in the US.

I am really shocked when i hear people say that they "only" had to pay $3-6k even though they were covered by their company's health insurance (which you probably pay premiums on anyways). I only paid $80, and that was for a private, upgraded room that i shared with my LO and DH.

@Mrs. Jacks: Do you think people would realize that if the costs to give birth to a child were low, that it would really be a benefit to the child?

While I definitely agree that the US needs healthcare reform, I don't think the discussion here addresses some key issues (, such as the true cost of the program(s), the qualifications for expensive treatment(s), and the unavailability for some treatment(s) without private health insurance) without which there can't be a fair comparison made between/amongst the different systems. No system is perfect, and there are advantages and disadvantages for each.

ETA: And receipt of services on a priority basis, i.e., a waiting list (for lack of a better phrase).

@looch: I agree regarding use of the word *free.*

@Ree723: @meredithNYC: It may not be your experience, but it happens regularly (denial of treatment/ failure to qualify for treatment). The young mother died within the last couple of years, and the two older gentlemen denied stents were friends of my parents.

@Anagram: The reason you can't sue as easily (although it's not as easy in the US as the media would have you believe) in England/Canada is because it is the government providing services, and the government has protection under the US equivalent of sovereign immunity (, i.e., that the *state* actor cannot commit a legal wrong). There are exceptions to the application of sovereign immunity, but it creates a extraordinary burden for anyone to get around in order to maintain an action against the state.

@MsLipGloss: No system is perfect, but you have to admit that one is extremely disadvantaged in the US if not covered by some health insurance. You are only at an advantage living in the US (with access to top quality medical care) if you earn a good income with an employer that offers great medical coverage. This is why friends in Canada complain, because they have to get on a waiting list to get hip/back surgery. This is an old Time article, but good at raising the question of why medical bills are so high in the US: http://livingwithmcl.com/BitterPill.pdf

Reading these replies makes me feel really lucky! I live in the US and have what I thought was pretty average HMO-insurance through my work, but my total labor with pitocin, epidural, etc plus a few days stay for my LO in the NICU was under $7000 billed to insurance and we paid a $100 copay and that's it. Reading this article (someone posted it to Facebook yesterday) was really eye-opening!

@MsLipGloss: I agree with you!

I'm self-employed with private insurance, and I have great coverage. I don't make a lot, and I am my employer. It was about doing research and finding a company/plan that worked best for us ... and keeping myself in great shape (making the best health decisions).

@MsLipGloss: I should have added "or" in between those two qualifiers. Yes, it's a generalization, but i don't think it's far off the mark, and you have to at least admit that one is disadvantaged if without coverage (and the number without coverage is staggering). I understand where you're coming from, so please don't take my comments as "America is evil."

It would be interesting if there was actually a study on what the true cost of universal health care is, and how it compares to a health care system such as the US! By expensive coverage, do you mean one with higher premiums? DH has better coverage than i do (everything is 100% covered, whereas i only have 80% covered) but neither one of us has to co-pay.

@Freckles: To be fair, I wholeheartedly agree that being uninsured is a huge problem for far too many Americans. And when I think about any of those uncovered Americans being children, it makes my already sick stomach even sicker.

It would be interesting to see a comparison between universal care in England, the slightly different universal care in Canada (if I am not mistaken, coverage varies between the provinces so it is not completely "universal"), and the US system.

I don't automatically equate higher premiums with better coverage . . . as an example, my DH pays more for his healthcare through his employer than I do through my employer, and we have practically identical coverage. This is, at least in part, due to the population being insured and the (actuarially assessed) risks associated with providing coverage to that group (examples would be risks associated with profession/age such as older heart-attack prone attorneys, young accident prone construction workers, etc.),and number of people insured (DH's employer is much larger than mine).

Ironically, healthcare can be cheaper for an uninsured person versus an insured person . . . hospitals/treatment centers usually offer self-pay patients a considerable discount for their bill (usually ranging from 30-60%!) that an insured patient would not be eligible for (and by that I mean that the bill going to the insurance company is usually much more expensive than bill going to a self-pay patient).

My husband and I aren't plnning to get pregnant for over a year and we're already planning to upgrade to his companies most expensive insurance plan when we do want to start trying as it offers the best coverage-I think a $20 co-pay for your first visit and then covered after that. The costs are ridiculously out of control though! I know a girl who had a baby recently (mid-20's who is very irresponsible/not the smartest person) and didn't have insurance or anything so her entire birth and everything was covered by the government and she didn't have to pay a cent! That really angers me because hard working responsible people like those on the Bee have to plan and budget to afford to have a baby and then other people have their births covered by our tax dollars-infuriating!!