I’m Canadian. And I’m already sorry for asking an ignorant question.

I know you have to pay for hospital visits in the states. I know lower economic status can come with lower access to birth control and sex education. But then, how do they afford to give birth? Do people ever avoid hospital visits because they don’t feel like they can’t afford it?

Do hospitals put people on a payment plan? Is it possible to give birth and not pay if you don’t have the means? How does it work in the states?

How does it all work?

Again. Canadian. And sorry.

  • Punkie@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 year ago

    I can answer this: my son was born in 1990. We were extremely poor.

    We had midwives help us out as best they could, to the tune of about $3200 at the time. The birth got complicated due to a variety of health factors, and both my son and wife almost died (not because of the midwives). Luckily the midwives had a direct line to Georgetown Hospital, and the cesarean was done there. The total hospital bill was $58,000, or $138k in today’s money, although hospital costs have rose much higher vs inflation, so maybe it would be in the $200k range now. She was in the ICU for a week, hospital for another week, our son for about 3 weeks.

    My wife job didn’t have health insurance, because it wasn’t required back then. Because she was gone a week, her job fired her for an unexcused absence. Oddly enough, this made her unemployed and Washington DC had some law (or rule or something) that immediately dropped the hospital bills because of her unemployment. In the end, we had to pay $15k to about two dozen practices who individually sued us, which took 7 years to pay off and a lot of court visits and wage garnishments. It financially ruined us, pretty much. Both suffered a lot afterwards because we just couldn’t afford minimal care. It was hellish. I can’t imagine how much worse it would be today. We got evicted from our apartment, and lived in government housing for six years.

    So, yeah. Don’t have a baby in America unless you can guarantee it will be healthy and you have a lot of money. Most of my friends don’t have kids, they simply can’t afford it and look at it like the previous generation looked at concepts like summer homes and yachts. Nice luxuries, but way out of affordabilty.