The cost of raising a child in America has soared (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: The cost of raising a child in America has soared (2018)

#51

Post by souprock » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 1:13 AM UTC

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #38

souprock wrote: post #36

Most of this is totally optional. I have a dozen kids, and I'm sure not spending that kind of money per kid. Births are usually cheap. You can go it alone for $0 or get a midwife for $2000 to $6000. Most of us have health insurance with an out-of-pocket maximum. For example, mine tops out around $11,000. Crazy bills can usually be negotiated, with the hospital very aware that you might just not pay at all. Child care…

Are you home schooling? In CA, depending on where you live, it costs the state and tax payers 10-14k/annum per child. That’s for 12 years. Dozen kids would cost about 1.6 million for 12 years of public education. ETA: I just saw that you mentioned homeschooling. If it’s ok to ask, how much are your expenses per month and do you own your home?

I get dual-enrollment for free here in Florida, which most of my kids use to get AA degrees, so the state/county is paying something. I spent about $1000 for AP Chemistry labs and possibly about that much on all kinds of textbooks.

Expenses are primarily food, at about $4000 per month. The rest isn't usually notable unless something is broken, such as when our 4-ton air conditioner is low on coolant or gets the fan stuck. Normally somebody needs surgery (cracked skull, rib cage correction, etc.) so my medical bills hit the yearly out-of-pocket maximum at around $11,000. We probably do 100 to 200 miles per week, fuel being $2.25, so that is pretty much nothing.

I paid off my home in 8 years. It's 3500 square feet on 0.39 acre, about 0.9 mile from the beach. I got it for about $310,000 after the crash.

Re: The cost of raising a child in America has soared (2018)

#52

Post by ThrustVectoring » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 1:27 AM UTC

foxfired wrote: post #39

In January of this year, I was blessed with two beautiful fraternal twins. Twins come out earlier and are expected to be preemies usually. The problem was, they were due on March 15. We spent two months in the NICU (newborn intensive care unit). The nurses couldn't be more amazing. They took care of those babies like they were their own. And along the way, they took care of us. They made sure nothing was ever missing…

Whatever you do, don't raid your 401k or retirement plans to pay these kinds of debts. I'd also take a very strong position that you're only going to pay up to your out of pocket maximum, and file a regulatory complaint over any balance billing or failure to cover services above that.

State regulations matter a hell of a lot here. I'm seriously considering moving to Texas because of debtor laws - any health incident can cause one to accumulate a large amount of "debt" in a hurry, and being able to tell creditors to pound sand gives a hell of a lot of peace of mind.

Re: The cost of raising a child in America has soared (2018)

#53

Post by wincy » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 1:29 AM UTC

foxfired wrote: post #49

whymsicalburito wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that is a horrific situation, I truly hope it turns out well for your family. Does your policy have an out-of-pocket maximum? My HR department always gives us hypothetical situations and the out-of-pocket maximum is often portrayed as the saving grace that makes things like this not destroy your finances. Is this true or is my skepticism well placed?

The counselors at the hospital told me same thing. The out-of-pocket maximum was set to be $5,000 for the insurance. But they also gave us a ceiling (which I don't remember the exact amount at the moment). I was advised that to get Medical which, I did right away, and it is supposed to be retroactive.

Wow that’s crazy! I thought I was down on my luck last year when I got fired while my wife was pregnant. But medicaid has covered 100% of my daughter bills at the hospital. She’s been in the NICU for 8 months now. So even though I make a software engineer’s salary I haven’t had to pay anything. It’s weird that being unemployed saved me from the same hardship as you. I hope it all gets sorted and wish you all the best.

Re: The cost of raising a child in America has soared (2018)

#54

Post by taneq » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 1:38 AM UTC

foxfired wrote: post #39

In January of this year, I was blessed with two beautiful fraternal twins. Twins come out earlier and are expected to be preemies usually. The problem was, they were due on March 15. We spent two months in the NICU (newborn intensive care unit). The nurses couldn't be more amazing. They took care of those babies like they were their own. And along the way, they took care of us. They made sure nothing was ever missing…

They can't possibly expect you to actually pay anything like that, can they? I think for having our first kid (including well regarded obstetrician and a two week stay in the NICU) we paid a total of around $5k. Three cheers for civilized countries with real healthcare!

Not to mention the way they over-serviced you sounds downright exploitative. I wonder if the staff had been covertly told to use as many consumables as possible?

Re: The cost of raising a child in America has soared (2018)

#55

Post by bandushrew » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 1:55 AM UTC

taneq wrote: post #54

foxfired wrote: post #39

In January of this year, I was blessed with two beautiful fraternal twins. Twins come out earlier and are expected to be preemies usually. The problem was, they were due on March 15. We spent two months in the NICU (newborn intensive care unit). The nurses couldn't be more amazing. They took care of those babies like they were their own. And along the way, they took care of us. They made sure nothing was ever missing…

They can't possibly expect you to actually pay anything like that, can they? I think for having our first kid (including well regarded obstetrician and a two week stay in the NICU) we paid a total of around $5k. Three cheers for civilized countries with real healthcare! Not to mention the way they over-serviced you sounds downright exploitative. I wonder if the staff had been covertly told to use as many consumables…

2 sets of twins, one set spent 3 weeks in prenatal and they went through a bad bout of jaundice that needed care and treatment.

total hospital bill: 0

Re: The cost of raising a child in America has soared (2018)

#56

Post by scruple » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 2:01 AM UTC

foxfired wrote: post #49

whymsicalburito wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that is a horrific situation, I truly hope it turns out well for your family. Does your policy have an out-of-pocket maximum? My HR department always gives us hypothetical situations and the out-of-pocket maximum is often portrayed as the saving grace that makes things like this not destroy your finances. Is this true or is my skepticism well placed?

The counselors at the hospital told me same thing. The out-of-pocket maximum was set to be $5,000 for the insurance. But they also gave us a ceiling (which I don't remember the exact amount at the moment). I was advised that to get Medical which, I did right away, and it is supposed to be retroactive.

This is frightening to read. How is this possible? My wife and I have 3 week old fraternal twin girls (wife is a living, breathing superwoman who carried them to full-term, despite being on strict bedrest from 26 weeks due to pre-term labor scare). We haven't gotten the bill yet but we had assumed that we were in the clear at this point because we've already reached the max (many, many months back, in fact).

Re: The cost of raising a child in America has soared (2018)

#57

Post by paulcole » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 2:04 AM UTC

Article doesn’t even touch on the environmental costs. Probably the worst thing you can do for the environment is have a kid.

Edit: Why downvote this? It’s like talking about the cost of driving while ignoring all the costs being externalized and offloaded on everyone else.

Re: The cost of raising a child in America has soared (2018)

#58

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 2:13 AM UTC

wincy wrote: post #53

foxfired wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counselors at the hospital told me same thing. The out-of-pocket maximum was set to be $5,000 for the insurance. But they also gave us a ceiling (which I don't remember the exact amount at the moment). I was advised that to get Medical which, I did right away, and it is supposed to be retroactive.

Wow that’s crazy! I thought I was down on my luck last year when I got fired while my wife was pregnant. But medicaid has covered 100% of my daughter bills at the hospital. She’s been in the NICU for 8 months now. So even though I make a software engineer’s salary I haven’t had to pay anything. It’s weird that being unemployed saved me from the same hardship as you. I hope it all gets sorted and wish you all the best…

[deleted]

Re: The cost of raising a child in America has soared (2018)

#59

Post by opencl » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 2:13 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #7

q845712 wrote: post #6

The article points to housing as one of the largest factors of raising a child, and mentions healthcare as well. To my very limited understanding, we calculate inflation from some fixed [per comments below: not entirely fixed] index of consumer goods prices [per comments below: which include some notional aggregate of rent]. Is it possible that instead of saying "The cost of children, housing, healthcare, and educati…

> we calculate inflation from some fixed index of consumer goods prices CPI includes housing, healthcare and tuition. The basket isn’t fixed, e.g. 1999 CPI didn’t include cell phone data costs.

The weighting applied to housing, healthcare, and tuition appears to be nonsensically low compared to the fraction of income most people spend on them.

Though to be fair CPI is computed nationally and things like housing prices are so localized that it's impossible to come up with a number that makes sense across the whole country anyway.

Re: The cost of raising a child in America has soared (2018)

#60

Post by grecy » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 2:17 AM UTC

foxfired wrote: post #39

In January of this year, I was blessed with two beautiful fraternal twins. Twins come out earlier and are expected to be preemies usually. The problem was, they were due on March 15. We spent two months in the NICU (newborn intensive care unit). The nurses couldn't be more amazing. They took care of those babies like they were their own. And along the way, they took care of us. They made sure nothing was ever missing…

What a very sad story that regular people have to live in these conditions in the richest country in the world.

What has gone so wrong?