How much does it cost to have a baby?

syssa-o · September 2017

In Canada, we are fairly lucky. Our costs were extremely low with both births. With our son we paid $150 for circumcision and we upgraded to a private room which was covered through insurance. Oh, we also paid parking which was maybe total of 30$

I truly don't think we would be able to afford having children in the states. What are you guys anticipating paying?

ShawnnaO · September 2017

I think there's a thread about this somewhere, but I can't for the life of me remember the name of it. I know a lot of ladies have expressed that they're already having such a hard time with bills. In mine and my husbands case, pregnancy and childbirth won't cost us a dime. Our health insurance fully covers everything. But we are the very lucky few. Post childbirth expenses won't be too hard on us, mostly because my mom is amazing and starts stockpiling for us the second she finds out that I'm pregnant. For example, my daughter just turned one and we JUST bought the first pack of diapers that *we* actually had to pay for.

orbmaker · September 2017

Yes, we got into this big-time in a thread called "payin' for it" (has probably been asleep for a week or two)!

syssa-o · September 2017

@orbmaker sweet, thanks for the info

syssa-o · September 2017

@orbmaker it didn't really answer my question, I guess I was more so interested in a cumulative number ("a hospital birth cost me $x,xxx") but it was very interesting. THanks for drawing my attention over that way.

slr1229 · September 2017

Our first at the end was probably 3500k after I totaled all the bills from day 1.

orbmaker · September 2017

@syssa-o my hospital and insurance plan estimated I'll owe $3000 for delivery.

heatherdubrow · September 2017

@syssa-o in the past I have paid around $2000 for vaginal birth with an epidural (and a whole slew of complications)

notthefather · September 2017

I have incredible insurance. I will pay about $50 out of pocket for prenatal and hospital care.

hdaley · September 2017

Probably around $3000 just for hospital and another $2000 for doctor, ultrasounds and lab work

npkat · September 2017

All in all.. should be about $1,000-1,500. Luckily with our insurance, we have no deductibles or copays.

cford08 · September 2017

Haven't had one yet, but have talked to other moms at my job. My hospital pays considerably more if I have my baby in house since I work there. Like only 1k out of pocket if I decide to get an epidural, 2k for a c section. Insurance handles the rest. If I mosey on across the street to the hospital that's part of a top 10 in the US children's hospital, 10k. Off top, out of pocket. And that's apparently just for a run of the mill stay. So I'll be having this baby at my job and paying less. Which kind of sucks, because I've heard the care is a little better. Thankfully literally half of my support system is in healthcare so me and boo should be alright.

Edited because I'm terrible with words.

rachel2107 · September 2017

This is my first, but I will only be responsible for $50 in total (from day 1) regardless of whether I have a c-section or not.

Gingermom15 · September 2017

With Our first I met my deductible of $1500 with money my work place puts in my HSA. Then we paid about $1000 out of pocket for the room stay and c section. I still haven't gotten my son's NICU bill because my hospitals billing dept SUCKS.
I'm on my husbands insurance policy now and we have to meet our $2000 deductible before it kicks in, then it pays almost completely in full. We're going to be meeting it twice, which really sucks. My OB allows us to make $350 payments monthly and whatever is left after the birth is refunded or if it costs more they bill us. This is really convenient for us because that's how much we were saving a month for the bill at the end

syssa-o · September 2017

Very interesting. It seems like most of you have decent-good insurance coverage. What are monthly premiums like? Sorry for the questions! I'm truly curious.... our insurance comes off of my SO's cheque and it is a minuscule amount like 7$ or something.

Gingermom15 · September 2017

syssa-o said:

Very interesting. It seems like most of you have decent-good insurance coverage. What are monthly premiums like? Sorry for the questions! I'm truly curious.... our insurance comes off of my SO's cheque and it is a minuscule amount like 7$ or something.

We pay about $40 monthly for our health insurance and I carry our vision and dental, which are $15 a month combined

syssa-o · September 2017

@Gingermom15 that's not that bad at all. I guess I'm sort of surprised because I've really only heard the crazy, "I had a baby and they stayed in the nicu and now I owe $27,000" from south of the border. Everyone seems to be paying *somewhat* reasonable amounts.

ashleyf911 · September 2017

@syssa-o Honestly I think it just depends on what plan you have. My out of pocket maximum is $4000, so the most I'll ever have to pay per calendar year is $4000. Everything after that is covered 100% by insurance. I suppose if your plan has a really high OOP max or if things aren't covered by your plan then you could wind up with a crazy bill like that, but from what I understand, that's pretty rare.

Gingermom15 · September 2017

Our insurance is through a union and is cheaper and better than my insurance I carried for myself through my hospital. Plans can vary greatly. We're lucky to have a decent plan

hdaley · September 2017

Our insurance sucks! It is through DH's work. We pay like $100-$200/paycheck for health, vision and dental. And have a $5000 deductible so everything and I mean everything is out of pocket until we hit that $5000. We have almost hit it for this year because a big chunk was an ER visit when I **TW hemeragged during a miscarriage in January.

notthefather · September 2017

syssa-o said:

Very interesting. It seems like most of you have decent-good insurance coverage. What are monthly premiums like? Sorry for the questions! I'm truly curious.... our insurance comes off of my SO's cheque and it is a minuscule amount like 7$ or something.

My husband is a public school teacher and their insurance plan is a huge benefit. Individual plans are about $25 a month. A family plan is about $120 a month. Both have amazing coverage, hence why I will pay $50 OOP. We would pay $250 ($200 hospital admission fee, $25 a day in-patient fee after admission) but there is a voluntary prenatal program that will waive the $200 hospital admission fee if you participate. The program is great. You have 24/7 access to an OB nurse, they send you gifts, and to "participate" you only have to talk to them on the phone once a trimester.

Cowboycorgi · September 2017

Our insurance (health, dental, medical) cost $27 per month for the 3 of us.
My total (prenatal-post care) was $3,200. However I have a health savings account that rolls over every year, so we put $150 pretax in every paycheck and had it completely covered by the end.

[Deleted User] · September 2017

We have a deductible of $1600 so I'm sure it will be around 2k when all is said and done. Maybe a bit more.

[Deleted User] · September 2017

notthefather said:

syssa-o said:

Very interesting. It seems like most of you have decent-good insurance coverage. What are monthly premiums like? Sorry for the questions! I'm truly curious.... our insurance comes off of my SO's cheque and it is a minuscule amount like 7$ or something.

My husband is a public school teacher and their insurance plan is a huge benefit. Individual plans are about $25 a month. A family plan is about $120 a month. Both have amazing coverage, hence why I will pay $50 OOP. We would pay $250 ($200 hospital admission fee, $25 a day in-patient fee after admission) but there is a voluntary prenatal program that will waive the $200 hospital admission fee if you participate. The program is great. You have 24/7 access to an OB nurse, they send you gifts, and to "participate" you only have to talk to them on the phone once a trimester.

@notthefather Do you live in a blue state or something? I'm a teacher and my coverage is no where NEAR that nice. But I'm in a red state so...

[Deleted User] · September 2017

@syssa-o Are you moving to the states? Just curious why you needed to know.

notthefather · September 2017

@antoto: Not even close

I'm in a state that's about as red as i gets.

[Deleted User] · September 2017

notthefather said:

@antoto: Not even close I'm in a state that's about as red as i gets.

Well dang I'm jealous. If I add JUST my H to my plan I would be paying like $800 a month. No joke. LO will obviously be put on my H's insurance.

pregobeth · September 2017

We just changed insurance, and before it would have cost us between $7,000 and $8,000 for a "Normal birth".
With our new insurance, we are expecting to pay around $3,000. We're on an HSA PPO plan with the $3000 deductible, so once we hit the $3000 mark, they "should" pay for the rest. We are paying a little over $400 a month though just for me.

cford08 · September 2017

@syssa-o I pay around $600/month for health, dental, vision, HSA. DH and I work at same hospital and have to have our own plans. Which is ridiculous, but is what it is. Bambino is going on DH insurance as he makes more.

syssa-o · September 2017

@antoto nope, I love Canada and would never consider leaving. I've just immersed myself in a board of women who seem to be primarily from the states, so I was curious about the differences re: hospital costs & insurance.

[Deleted User] · September 2017

syssa-o said:

@antoto nope, I love Canada and would never consider leaving. I've just immersed myself in a board of women who seem to be primarily from the states, so I was curious about the differences re: hospital costs & insurance.

I see. I won't lie this thread sort of rubbed me the wrong way. In your initial post you talk about how you basically don't pay for anything other than elective cosmetic things like circumcision and then..... parking. When someone redirected you to a different thread where a few people DID mention pricing and tons about insurance you said that no - you wanted to know the bottom line price everyone was paying. It's really hard for me to take this post as anything other than bragging and using other people's financial struggles to perhaps make yourself feel good about your situation? Honestly not sure how to take it any other way. Perhaps you didn't create this thread for that reason but it's hard to see it differently to me at least.

I thought maybe you were moving here and needed to know so you could prepare... but I guess that wasn't the case.

Perhaps a simple Google search "What is the average patient cost for childbirth in the US" would have sufficed without making those of us who have to pay thousands out of pocket not feel frustrated that all you have to worry about is parking?

notthefather · September 2017

antoto said:

notthefather said:

@antoto: Not even close I'm in a state that's about as red as i gets.

Well dang I'm jealous. If I add JUST my H to my plan I would be paying like $800 a month. No joke. LO will obviously be put on my H's insurance.

It really is amazing and I'm so thankful for it. Teachers don't get paid a lot but this type of benefit really evens it out. I couldn't believe some of the premium prices I've seen other people pay. I've seen premiums that are more than my mortgage. It's awful.

syssa-o · September 2017

@antoto I followed your advice and it doesn't seem to line up with the answers that I have received. If by any means my original post made you feel uncomfortable, I'm sure you could have chosen to bypass the thread? You are of course entitled to your opinion.

syssa-o · September 2017

@antoto should you ever have any questions about anything Canadian, feel free to ask. I won't criticize your curiosity.

[Deleted User] · September 2017

@syssa-o The number above is likely a correct national average. The ladies on TB probably aren't a good data sample of the true national average. TB users are predominantly white and middle/upper class.

[Deleted User] · September 2017

syssa-o said:

@antoto should you ever have any questions about anything Canadian, feel free to ask. I won't criticize your curiosity.

If it was something personal like finances I would just Google it. Like I said above. I'm not saying your intention was malicious. But just because you were curious doesn't mean this was in good taste. It may have been different if you didn't preface it by talking about a $30 parking fee.

notthefather · September 2017

I think the biggest discrepency here is that we are reporting our OOP expenses but the screenshot above indicates it includes the amount paid OOP by the patient and the amount paid by the insurance plan. That's a huge difference.
What I paid: $50
What my insurance paid: A shit ton

syssa-o · September 2017

@antoto I'm not insinuating that the above number is not correct. I am curious about what women HERE that I am choosing to associate with are paying to have babies. When I went to the paying for it thread, it was a lot of talk about insurance that as a Canadian, I did not understand because it is lingo I have never had to learn. I am sorry that you read into my post that way. I am not sorry for posting it though.

It is interesting to me because I have only ever seen the horror stories (as I posted about $27,000 which came from a Facebook post somewhere) and to me, I did not understand HOW people were affording to have children if they are costing tens of thousands of dollars. The answers on this post, have shown me that it is more manageable than I had originally thought.

Yes, I did post what we have had to pay for a hospital birth because I am asking what you all are paying. I'm not going to ask a question and not answer it.

syssa-o · September 2017

notthefather said:

I think the biggest discrepency here is that we are reporting our OOP expenses but the screenshot above indicates it includes the amount paid OOP by the patient and the amount paid by the insurance plan. That's a huge difference.
What I paid: $50
What my insurance paid: A shit ton

This makes sense. I honestly probably sound so ignorant re: insurance, deductibles etc but it is never something I've had to pay attention to.

[Deleted User] · September 2017

@syssa-o Glad to hear your intentions were simple, but I hope you also understand how this comes across to some. Put it in literally any other context.

I got an A on my paper - I heard you got a low grade, what exact percentage did you get and what did the teacher write??

I just purchased a gorgeous 5,000 sq. foot house - I heard you got a studio apartment, exactly how many square feet is it??

See how that's a little weird? I'm not trying to attack you or villainize you. I just wanted to point out that you could have been perhaps more subtle here.

runsoncoffee · September 2017

@notthefather I was going to say the same thing...
I'm not offended by the question. She's just curious. It's interesting to hear differences among US vs. Canada as well as just other mama's in the US.
My first pregnancy I had a high deductible plan along with an HSA that my employer matched. I paid around 2600 I believe but that includes the HSA. This time around I am on DH's insurance and his is a different type of plan. My deductible was a lot lower and my total OOP expense is 1500. I have a high-ish risk pregnancy though so I'll be paying the deductible/OOP twice since our plan rolls over at the end of the year. Kinda a bummer about an early in the year baby but oh well!!
Also @syssa-o I believe those with military insurance plans have little to no expenses along with those who work for state police or other agencies like that (at least that has been my experience for people that I know).

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