- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
1st Trimester
MrserinJ
member
S/O post sort of. You have to pay to have your baby?
MrserinJ
member
I was reading a reply to my u/s post below and something said kind of shocked me. So you have to pay to have your baby? Like for delivery and pre-natal care? I know here in Canada, its costs if you need fertility treatments or IVF, but we don't pay anything when we have our babies or for pre-nantal care. Maybe I am misunderstanding this? It must be because our healthcare system is different. So how much does it usually cost to get pregnant, have pre-natal care and deliver your baby? I'm not saying one way is better than the other, I'm just curious 
This discussion has been closed.
Re: S/O post sort of. You have to pay to have your baby?
Estimated expenses for having a baby in the US (dependent upon insurance):
$500 prenatal care
$2000 for delivery
I was given a rough outline at my first doctor's visit. It included all prenatal visits but no testing or ultrasounds (I believe). For a vaginal birth it was around $4500, for a C-section it was closer to $5,000. Insurance will cover some or all of that, depending on your plan. I do not live in a metropolis, but rather a small town in the Southern Tier of NYS, so my numbers are probably lower than someone in NYC or Chicago (just a guess)
For DD my insurance covered everything 100%. But, the total cost was something like $30,000 for the entire hosptial stay (labor and delivery). I don't know how much prenatal care would have been.
This time, the insurance changed and we were going to have to pay $6,000. Luckily we were able to change our plan at the last minute and now we are covered 100% again, as long as we chose all in-network doctors/hospitals. If we get stuck having to use out of network (which I don't anticipate), we have to pay for everything, they won't cover it at all.
We paid about $1700 for DD. The OB office broke their portion down into payments that we paid every months for six months. So the money for all visits, labs, and the midwife helping birth was paid for before DD arrived. We got a bill from the hospital for me and one for DD about a month and a half after I delivered her.
We have really good insurance. DH's cousin is about 12 weeks and she just found out it's going to cost her $3400 and I'm not sure if that includes the actual bill for being in the hospital.
Raeleigh Elizabeth http://theturnerpage.blogspot.com/
This.
LOL - yes, of course we do! I pay my copay the first visit ($50) and then nothing else for the rest of my visits. I think I pay $50 for each u/s so it'll be about $150 for that, so $200 for prenatal care. Last time, my per day in-hospital stay was $200 so that was $600 total... this time, it's higher (new insurance) so it's $500 a day.. so if I'm there 3 days - $1500.
(kind of a long response, sorry)
If you have insurance you have to pay basically your entire deductible for the year since chances are your labor/delivery is going to cost a whole lot of money. For me, this basically means a $500.00 deductible, PLUS my insurance covers 80% of all procedures so I am liable for 20%. However, this is capped at $2,000.00.
SO I am looking at paying about $2,500.00 for me, and if the baby has a lot of costs possibly $2,500 for the baby since it is a deductible of $500 per PERSON on the insurance plan. I may not have to pay the full $2,000 for the baby if the medical bills are not that high for the baby. But if there are any complications I will pay $2,500.00 for the baby as well.
And of course if the DH gets sick at any point this year, you guessed it, his deductible is $500 and again 80% is covered leaving us to pay 20% of any remaining bills, capped at $2,000.00. So let's hope DH has NO medical bills this year!
Even with insurance here, you must pay a deductible most of the time with your insurance policy. Obviously the higher the out of pocket deductible, the less you are going to pay for your monthly or yearly premium. The less you pay each year or month for medical insurance, the higher your out of pocket deductible will likely be (as is the norm for car insurance).
No health insurance is really "free" in this country. Unless of course you are on medicaid, or welfare, in which case, most all of your healthcare is FREE as are your prescriptions, etc...
And of course if you're "rich" money is no issue so you don't mind paying for healthcare. Everyone else in the "middle" has to pay something.
http://balletandbabies.blogspot.com
Busy's First Trip to Ireland May 2011
Most insurances cap at a certain point so you would have to pay 20% up to 5000 as an example.
Ditto.
Everyone's insurance here is different. For me I have to meet the first $1000 in expenses. My company gives us an HRA card that pays $500 of the deductible. It's like a credit card that can only be used for health expenses.
So, $500 company paid HRA + $500 out of my pocket = $1000 deductible
After I have met the deductible, my insurance pays 80% of costs and I pay 20% until I have paid $1200. Insurance then covers the rest at 100%.
So, total, I will pay $1700 out of pocket. Not bad considering.
I agree that socialized medicine is not the answer for all but I have to say that it is better care than most women without insurance would recieve in the US.
My Blog on PPD and life in general**
Most insurance plans have an out-of-pocket maximum for the year - so your deductible may be $250 with an out-of-pocket max of $2000. Which means if the hospital bills run into the 200K range, you'll still only pay the $2250 for the year. Of course, if you deliver at the end of December and baby is in the hospital into January, you'll pay last year's and this year's max - so $4500 for the baby, plus whatever you owe for your care. Those figures are our insurance through my husband's work. My private insurance before we switched to his had a $1000 deductible plus a $5000 max, which meant we would have paid $6000 for labor/delivery...which is part of the reason we waited to get PG until he became eligible for his insurance.
You get the same care whether or not you are insured. You just have to pay more.
It's almost always capped at a certain amount like $1,500.00, $2,000.00 or $5,000.00 I think those are the normal numbers.
As much as it may cost, I'm pretty happy about the Doctors in the practice I'm going to. It's a big hospital with excellent doctors and a state of the art new maternity wing. I know that a lot of people think that medical care should be "free" for everyone, (and if you live in a country where it is free and your government can afford to provide excellent medical care, then great and I'm jealous!
But, I do know that hospitals cost a lot of money to run, there is research to fund, doctor's salaries to pay (who have whopping student loans and need decent salaries), etc... And my opinion is that if I have to pay a mechanic a few hundred bucks everytime something goes wrong with my car, and if I happily pay $100.00 for a pair of shoes I love, I will fork over $85.00 for a season of softball or volleyball for my team, I happily paid $2,000 to get my hardwood floors installed, I don't think paying $2,500.00 one year for having a baby is really all that bad.
That's just my personal opinion, but of course my husband and I have jobs that allow us to pay for our medical care this year and I understand plenty of people may not have the money to pay high deductibles for insurance or who can even afford insurance at all. Given the financial situation I am in, meaning that my husband and I have decent jobs (although I have whopping student loan payments that make me pretty poor each month) I do not really expect to have to pay nothing for 10-20 doctor's visits, countless consultations with doctors, ultrasounds, labor and delivery, prenatal care, and post-natal care. To me, medical bills are a part of life and they have to be budgeted for. This is of course only applicable for people who DO have decent medical insurance.
Without medical insurance, and assuming you are above the poverty line, you may be pretty screwed and usually people have to file bankruptcy to eliminate their ridiculous medical bills. (I'm a bankruptcy attorneys so this is pretty common).
http://balletandbabies.blogspot.com
We will not have to pay anything out of pocket for the birth of this baby. We are very fortunate that my husbands company pays the insurance premium for our family and my company cover the premium for me as part of our benefits. Because I am double covered we won't have to pay out of pocket. In America individuals pay insurance premiums in Canada tax payers pay them. Either way someone is paying.
You can have that both ways. At a office I used to go to, the Dr. told me that he has plenty of people from the states come here to see him... and we aren't even near the border.
You get the same care whether or not you are insured. You just have to pay more.
not true. ppl who aren't insured are less likely to look for care b/c they can't afford it and therefore are at risk for all the possibilities that came w/ being pg and no prenatal care. OR they go to free clinics/county clinics/what have you where they are given either free care or reduced care based on income, but if you think about it it's kinda like "social health care" anyway cuz guess who pays for it...