41–50 of 431 posts
The prenatal checkups, hospital stay, and postnatal midwife home visits were all covered by Medicare.
The flip side is that I lose ~30% of my pay to taxes. That's fine by me
Hmm, counting the insurance premiums 100% towards the birth of the child is a bit misleading. Presumably, you'd be paying those even if you didn't have the child. That said, the cost of health insurance for a family is pretty outrageous. My premiums are along the same lines as the ones here (although less noticeable since they're paid by my employer).
Clickbait. I too think insurance costs are too high, but the author included their annual insurance premiums in the calculation.
Yes, and? Without it, the total paid would be at least the same or more.
Hmm, counting the insurance premiums 100% towards the birth of the child is a bit misleading. Presumably, you'd be paying those even if you didn't have the child. That said, the cost of health insurance for a family is pretty outrageous. My premiums are along the same lines as the ones here (although less noticeable since they're paid by my employer).
Nearly 2 in 5 Americans are covered by Medicare or Medicaid. TANSTAAFL. The other 3 bear the burden. At some point Atlas shrugs and decides welfare is a better deal.
Over here in Australia, the most expensive part of my kid's birth were the AUD$200 antenatal classes. The prenatal checkups, hospital stay, and postnatal midwife home visits were all covered by Medicare. The flip side is that I lose ~30% of my pay to taxes. That's fine by me
That's not a flip side, that's what you'd be paying in the US, too, once you account for all your payroll taxes. Maintaining 11 carrier strike groups and a global empire don't come for free.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair, he's lucky enough to have not been in a major car accident that year, so he can attribute it all to the cost of giving birth. What would have been the out-of-pocket cost of a normal birth without health insurance? It's still your choice to go without.
No one is forcing you to give birth in a hospital. Rational people do it at home all the time to this day.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Completely removing the U.S. Government from the health care market (Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, uncompensated care, etc) would be a great start.
Could you explain how this would help? I'm struggling to understand where you're coming from here, besides perhaps a reflexive libertarian reaction to government.
> We estimate that these laws [mandating safety seats] prevented fatalities of 57 children in car crashes in 2017 but reduced total births by 8,000 that year and have decreased the total by 145,000 since 1980.
Clickbait. I too think insurance costs are too high, but the author included their annual insurance premiums in the calculation.
yea, 40k is not the "real cost" of the birth, if he includes his + the wife's health insurance premiums in the calculation. $25,680 premium + $14,300 deductible = $39,980 annual cost So actually if we compare this with a European country, it would be an almost similar amount in the end: there is no deductible, but health insurance/social security taxes can absolutely reach around 2k-3k per month if you earn enough.