How Much Does it Really Cost to Give Birth in the U.S.?

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How Much Does it Really Cost to Give Birth in the U.S.?

Everyone knows that having a child can be expensive long term, but what about actually having the child itself? How much does it actually cost to give birth? Not the vaccines and checkups needed after, not the parenthood training classes before, just the birthing process itself? The results may surprise you.

First: How does the baby come out? Naturally or by C-Section? Were there any complications?

This is the most important part. Women who give birth are charged by labor hours, aka how many hours they need assistance while in labor. If the doctors, gynecologists, and nurses need to do more than just help guide the baby out naturally, or she takes forever attempting to give birth, things start getting expensive. There's also many things needed to give birth, such as anesthesia, epidurals, IV's, etc. Here's a basic breakdown of what the charges may be, but it varies widely.

(1.) Room and Board: This varies, but rooms are usually about $1000 per day (give or take a couple hundred) to occupy. So if a new mother has to spend 2-3 days in the hospital giving birth, she will billed approximately $2000-3500 for this. Granted, these rooms are generally really nice, with privacy, TV's, radio, internet, adjustable beds, etc. However, this is going to be one expensive hotel stay...

(2.) Drugs: Easily $1000-2500, but again this varies. Some women need Epidurals, pain medicines, special drugs, IV's, etc. and some do not.

(3.) Giving birth itself: You're going to need a doctor (usually a gynecologist), some nurses, and sometimes a midwife. Before I even get to the price, let's just point out that the doctor and midwife may not even be employees of the hospital. They might just be independent workers who were contracted, meaning you'd be getting a separate bill from them, in addition to the nurses. The midwife may or may not be covered under insurance. If you have a normal, uncomplicated delivery via the hoo-ha, you'll only be looking at a minor $4,000-$8,000 for them to help you push a baby out. If you have complications and require a C-section though, that cost may jump to nearly $9,000-$13,000. Remember these are just averages, you might get charged twice as much if not more depending on location and the hospital used.

(4.) The new child is also a patient now: Oh did you think these costs covered both of you? HA! You're no longer 1 person with a little person inside anymore, it's 2 whole new people, and thus the little one is going to have room/board, doctor care, and drugs costs as well. Be prepared to spend another $1,500-$4,000 on the new baby, with it becoming increasingly more expensive the less healthy the baby is.

Luckily, insurance will cover your costs! Well, not exactly....

How Much Does it Really Cost to Give Birth in the U.S.?

First, let's total up those average costs.

Average cost of a normal, uncomplicated birth is $9,000-$15,000 + $1,500-$2,500 for the baby.

Average costs of a c-section birth w/ complications is $14,000-$25,000 + $2,500-$4,000 for the baby.

Okay so who pays for this? Well usually insurance, if you even have insurance. If you do then this will all be out of your pocket. If you have insurance your out of pocket expenses will usually be between $1,500-$3,500, and we haven't even gotten to the prenatal care costs yet! This amount will likely be more with a complicated c-section birth where a lot goes wrong. The out of pocket expenses is largely based on your plan and thus varies, but if you have an 80-20 plan this is right on target of what you might be expected to pay.

However the situation for mothers used to be a lot worse. Before the passing of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), pregnancy could be considered a PRE-EXISTING CONDITION if the mother enrolled too late (aka she was already pregnant), meaning the insurance WOULD NOT COVER THE COSTS. Luckily the ACA fixed this with the removal of the pre-existing condition clause.

Also, there are these things called "caps" in insurance. It may cost you $10k to give birth naturally, but insurance may only cover $7k-$8k for birth max. Sorry, the remaining costs are coming out of your pockets too! Let's also not forget about what I mentioned earlier how your midwife may not even be covered by insurance.

Births used to rarely take place in hospitals

How Much Does it Really Cost to Give Birth in the U.S.?

It is commonly engraved into our heads nowadays that a birth always has to happen at the hospital. When a woman breaks her water, what do people immediately do? RUSH HER TO THE HOSPITAL! We kind of treat giving birth now as if the woman just broke several bones in her body and immediately needs to get to the hospital for care.

Going to the hospital for birth used to be VERY rare over 50 years ago, and would scare women shitless if they had to go to the hospital because that usually meant something was very wrong. Women would usually give birth at home, with the help of a midwife, a nurse and/or doctor to make sure everything went smoothly. This obviously was much less expensive, and debatably easier on the mother. Nowadays it's very rare for a woman to give birth at home. This is because:

(1.) The possible risks involved. What if she needs a C-section? What if the baby is having complications? What if she is having complications? It's just easier to be safe than sorry and go to the hospital, where they're prepared for everything. Because of advances in medical care and the fact women go to the hospital almost always nowadays, infant mortality rates are the lowest ever in human history and are exponentially lower than they were just a century ago. So keep in mind, giving home at birth is a double edged sword on costs vs risk.

(2.) Based on these risks, many nurses and doctors refuse to help assist a home birth. Medical staff are constantly worried about malpractice. Whether on purpose or accidental it can cost millions to settle and a good portion of those wonderful doctor and nurse salaries are actually spent on malpractice insurance. They do not want to risk helping a home birth and having a lot of crap go wrong, possibly leading to the injury or death of the mother or baby. It's just too much of a risk.

Things to take away....

How Much Does it Really Cost to Give Birth in the U.S.?

(1.) The US Healthcare system is anything but a "system", it's fragmented with multiple parties. You have the patient (you), the healthcare provider (hospital and doctors), and the insurance company. That's three different parties revolved around something as routine as childbirth, and this increased number of parties means increased costs. The advantage of the US healthcare system is the higher quality of care, but it comes at a hefty cost and a lack of choice (it is NOT a free market, you either have employer based insurance, have to buy privately from a small selection of companies, or have to be enrolled in medicare. You aren't given any other choice). I'm not saying socialized medicine/insurance will automatically make all cost problems disappear, but it's worth looking into as it's helped reduce these costs and complexities in other countries.

(2.) Giving birth is almost treated as an emergency procedure that is a "choice" the parents should pay for. This is not at all fair since us humans are supposed and expected to reproduce, or else our race will die out. Almost every adult in the US becomes a parent at some point. Childbirth should be routine and not require major expenses, but it does. It is also something that can't just be done at home anymore.

(3.) If you are insured and healthy, chances are you'll be fine. Depending on the insurance company and hospital there have been cases where new mothers either paid nothing or only as much as the electric bill to give birth. The main problem with giving birth in the US is that it's a standardized procedure with non-standardized prices. It's like buying a Soda. It might cost only $1.00 at your local drug store or vending machine, or it might cost $6.00 at a baseball game.

Thank you for reading!

References:

Zuber, P. (2016). Introduction to How the US Health Care System Works[25]. Retrieved from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte LBST 2214 Issues of Health and Quality of Life Canvas site: https://canvas.uncc.edu

HOSPITAL COST FOR DELIVERY. (2013, September 02). Retrieved October 09, 2016, from https://pulol.com/hospital-cost-for-delivery/

How Much Does it Really Cost to Give Birth in the U.S.?
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