'We Got The Bill For Having A Baby- $37,000. Welcome To Life In America'
- We got the bill for having a baby – $37,000. Welcome to life in America, the Guardian, July 17, 2021. - Excerpts, Ed.
Baby got bills. For the last couple of months my wife and I have been playing a quintessentially American game of Guess the Baby Bill. The rules are simple: try to guess exactly how much we would be charged for the birth of our daughter earlier this year. Last week the hospital bill finally came, putting an end to the guessing game. The cost of an uncomplicated vaginal birth? $37,617.69.
I won’t repeat what I said when we got this bill, because it is unprintable. My language became particularly colourful when, scrutinizing the bill, I noticed that the bulk of the charge was for 3 nights’ “room and board” in a semi-private room (containing 2 beds separated by a curtain) which was $10,350 a night. That’s 5 times more expensive than a completely private suite at the Ritz-Carlton by Central Park. The post-delivery hospital room, by the way, was more budget motel than the Ritz..
The good news is that we don’t have to pay the entire bill: our health insurance covers about $31,000 – leaving us with a balance of around $6,000. That doesn’t make the ridiculously high prices OK. We’re still covering the costs indirectly via our enormous insurance premiums which are going to go up by 16% next year. They need that money to do the things health companies are supposed to do: maximise profits, boost the share price and pay their executives huge amounts of money. UnitedHealth Group’s chief executive made over $50 Million in salary, bonus and stock option compensation in 2019.
It’s not just the extortionate prices in America’s health system that are problematic. It’s the lack of transparency. My partner called our insurance company multiple times before the birth to try to find out how much we would expect to pay. We were told on each occasion that we wouldn’t have to pay anything.. America’s healthcare system isn’t just a nightmare to navigate – it’s inefficient and inequitable. The US may spend more on healthcare as a share of the economy than any other developed country, but it also has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world and maternal deaths have been increasing since 2000...
Full Article,
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/17/baby-got-bills-week-in-patriarchy-arwa-mahdawi
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sucks ass. It's unconscionable that this is allowed to happen. 
My Dad was always very diligent about keeping track of his expenses. I can remember him sitting down at his desk every week, going over what he spent, he had a whole drawer filled with journals chronicling the expenses for each week. And there is also one for the year I was born. I saw it once, there's a list of what was spent that week and a single entry with my name and what I cost. I don't remember what it was, but it lined up with normal expenses - and was nowhere near $37,000! 
Last time my Dad was in the hospital, he was charged hundreds for a pregnancy test, (HUH??!!??) $55 for a Tylenol, and for a doctor who never even saw my Dad, or consulted about his condition.
