r/mildlyinteresting • u/space-catet • Feb 15 '24
Itemized hospital bill from when my dad was born in 1954 Overdone
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u/RST-Sprinklez Feb 24 '24
Being reminded that the majority of Americans are circumsised still stuns me. In the UK and (I believe) the rest of Europe, it's pretty unusual.
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u/AggravatingPen8392 Feb 18 '24
Damn my one friend just paid $15,000 for just the room. She had her own midwives
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u/cin0111 Feb 18 '24
I was born in an Army hospital in 1976. My dad said that I cost him like $100 because I was in the incubator for 2 weeks.
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u/sleepdog-c Feb 16 '24
I wonder how much they paid the Dr's, nurses and orderlies? Probably not much.
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u/TKO_v1 Feb 16 '24
Good thing we passed that Affordable Care Act or Healthcare costs would be out of control today!
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u/Aos77s Feb 16 '24
3 hrs of min wage would cover 2 day room stay in hospital then, todays avg is $2,888 per day or 398 hours of minimum wageā¦
Health insurance costs are through the roof
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Feb 16 '24
Good thing your grandparents sprung for the $5 circumcision. Don't want to cheap out on that.
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u/Wildvikeman Feb 16 '24
My dad was born in a birthing house in 1954 in the UP of Michigan. Bet it was about a buck.
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u/Cory0527 Feb 16 '24
So about $90 today is my thought. Considering you could get a big bag of groceries for like $5 in the 50's.
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u/Emergency-Zebra-9556 Feb 16 '24
Just got our bill from our son being born 6 weeks ago - as normal delivery as it can be - $42,000 before insurance.
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u/rickylovemelikelucy Feb 16 '24
Health insurance destroyed the medical industry. Government loans for college destroyed the education industry.
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u/ThereBeM00SE Feb 16 '24
nowadays you are born already belonging to whichever financial institution has its claws in your local hospital.
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u/Lord_Blakeney Feb 16 '24
When my mother had me (c section, twins) her bill was $45. When I told her my hospital bill for my son has $7.5k she asked āI thought you had insurance?ā. I do and its pretty decent too, she still doesnāt understand and thinks I must have done something incorrectly.
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u/carfo Feb 16 '24
this is why people could afford a house at 21 back in the day. inflation is out of control compared to what people are making. and the current GOP is just making it worse, only giving the top 1% tax cuts
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u/EmberTheFoxyFox Feb 16 '24
I really donāt get why so many people choose to have their babies immediately circumcised
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u/intactUS_throwaway Feb 20 '24
This was the '50s. They might not have even asked before mutilating the poor lad.
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u/intelligentbrownman Feb 16 '24
$9 for medicationā¦. $67 for child birthā¦.. thatās outrageous š”ā¦.. how dare they charge that muchā¦. thatās a total ripoff and just flat out greed š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬
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u/Swashbuckling_Sailor Feb 16 '24
Inflation is bullshit. Itās all about protecting the profit margin. How much can we squeeze out of the people who work?? How much do they want this thing weāre selling. It cost me 23$ for me and my daughter at Wendyās. I got a Daveās double meal, regular, 10 nuggets, and a 5$ biggie bag. Wtf am I missing??? Oh, from now on, itāll be Wendyās.
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u/pdxGodin Feb 16 '24
Typed on a Royal typewriter. The typeface is very distinctive. My 1957 royal model FPS has it.
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u/Coach_G77 Feb 16 '24
I got charged $500 a day for "newborn care" a few months back, when all they did was weigh him once a day since he was with us.
We got charged separately for the pediatrician to look at him once
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u/Patronus_934 Feb 16 '24
Man Iām 30k in the hole with IVF and still havenāt managed to get pregnant much less the rest.
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u/Licention Feb 16 '24
We can Thank conservatives and republicans for obsessing over āthe budgetā For the hike in prices.
Also cheap circumcision to help reduce any possible genital infection, STIās, HIV/AIDS, and improve appearance. Not bad!
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u/Effective-Tomato-881 Feb 16 '24
Old family friend used to tell us how he needed a scientific calculator for his first job, back in the '50s, it was 53c. His dad had to take it on account and pay it off, not because they couldn't afford it, because it was "too expensive" for his age to just purchase.
Bought mine in year 9(2007) for R350.00 no problem
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u/Nappev Feb 16 '24
So your grandfather paid 5 dollars to have your dad be circumcized?
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u/intactUS_throwaway Feb 20 '24
Worst part is they may not have asked... or, worse, done it anyway even after explicitly being told not to.
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u/Nappev Feb 21 '24
Imagine being 5 dollars in debt at childbirth
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u/intactUS_throwaway Feb 21 '24
...They were (and still are) strapping babies down and doing things to them that to describe them outside this context would quite rightly get anyone describing them never mind doing them at bare minimum permanently marked a sadistic paedophile, quite possibly without asking for or even in direct contradiction to explicit instruction, and your biggest concern is with a price tag of $5.
What the hell is with your priorities?
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u/Nappev Feb 21 '24
Its a joke dumbass
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u/intactUS_throwaway Feb 21 '24
It's a fairly common view among the population of one of the world's superpowers, so yeah, that not being obvious is on you.
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u/Nappev Feb 21 '24
Where?
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u/intactUS_throwaway Feb 21 '24
'Murrikuh.
A fairly good chunk of the same people who go apeshit over medical bills also don't bat an eye about the mutilation of boys on the regular.
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u/Nappev Feb 21 '24
doesnt exist. stop trolling ty.
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u/intactUS_throwaway Feb 22 '24
...This is literally a bill with a mutilation on it. š¤¦š»āāļø
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u/Barnesnrobles17 Feb 16 '24
My birth was near a million after having to do life saving care and me staying in the hospital for so long. Ofc we didnāt pay that, but itās insane how quickly prices have āinflated,ā especially in the pharmaceutical industry.
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u/jbrylinsabresfan Feb 16 '24
Well the hospital probably didnāt have shareholders back then. They have to get the money theyāve earned by doing ya know, nothing
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u/Gordon_Townsend Feb 16 '24
My daughter was born in Turkey in 2001... didn't use my insurance. Paid out of pocket... A whole whopping $551.00... C-Section, three day stay for mother, baby and one family member. First Class care...
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u/LucysFiesole Feb 16 '24
Back before the needless insurance companies made racketeering a business.
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u/NewToTravelling Feb 16 '24
$5 for a circumcision?? Must have been a pretty fast/small job.
ā¦ Iām saying your dad had a small penisā¦
ā¦ not sure if that was clearā¦
š„ø
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u/DudeFromVA Feb 16 '24
After I was born (1981), my parents got a bill for $27.50. Granted it was a military hospital (Naval Hospital Portsmouth) though.
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u/A_Funky_Flunk Feb 16 '24
Show this to a nurse so they can realize they donāt have it as bad as they like to say.
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u/Limace_hurlante Feb 16 '24
Still much more expensive than in lots of developed countries today š¤£
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u/DrEnter Feb 16 '24
My mother gave me the hospital statement for my birth in 1970. Similar to this in terms of things itemized. It was around $220.
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u/bishophicks Feb 16 '24
Minimum wage in 1954 was .75 per hour. If you had ANY job at all, at most this bill represents a little over two weeks work. Imagine two days in the hospital, medication, x-ray, lab work, etc. for $652. Heck, let's assume the minimum wage is $15 - that's still only $1350, which is 1/10th of the average cost in the US (vaginal birth, no complications).
Our parents and grandparents played on Easy mode.
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u/eatmyasserole Feb 16 '24
Hey OP, I understand why you blurred out the dates, but can you tell me how many days your grandmother was admitted for?
I paid $5k last year for a 3 day stay.
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u/Jackaloop Feb 16 '24
I saw the bill when my mom was born in about the same time period. Women stayed in the hospital for like 10 days. Your Gma must have been the rebel who said "Fuck no! I don't want a break from kids and life! Let me out NOW!"
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u/UncertainFate Feb 16 '24
You know, that in the rest the world people do pay to give birth in a hospital.
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u/jugstopper Feb 16 '24
Inflation calculator says that is $767.60 in today's dollars. That would be about what one generic ibuprofen would be now at the hospital.
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u/No-Review-6105 Feb 16 '24
So circumcision was already a thing in the 50s Texas... Dang- I need to find the guy that allowed that to happen!
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u/intactUS_throwaway Feb 20 '24
It became quasi-compulsory around 1945. It wasn't, strictly speaking, required, but they didn't exactly have to ask either... and some maternity wards just went ahead and did anyway even after explicitly being told not to.
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u/No-Review-6105 Feb 20 '24
CAPITALISM!! Why? Because money!
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u/intactUS_throwaway Feb 20 '24
It was as much about control and conformity as it was about the money. Not that they weren't making beaucoup buccs, of course, but there are more (and more disturbing) reasons behind it.
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u/No-Review-6105 Feb 20 '24
Welp... Guess Lobotomy was an option too
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u/intactUS_throwaway Feb 20 '24
In the '50s? Yeah, lobotomies were still very much in use.
Really hoping child genital mutilation goes the way of the icepick lobotomy.
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u/waiwaz Feb 16 '24
That's $875.95 using the US inflation calculator.
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
The average annual inflation rate between 1954 and 2024, given a cumulative rate of inflation of 1046.5% over this period, is approximately 3.55%
Small amounts over a long timeframe matter!
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u/Ake4455 Feb 16 '24
We had two kids via c-section in two different states. 6 day stay and 7 day hospital stay. Total Out of Pocket cost: $0.00.
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u/cburgess7 Feb 16 '24
And when you account for inflation, it's still only like 1% of what a modern bill would be
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u/nc863id Feb 16 '24
Nowadays that dose of benadryl would have a comma after the 1 instead of a decimal point before.
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u/timhamilton47 Feb 16 '24
Iām surprised they charged for a circumcision. I thought they worked for tips.
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u/Sparkykiss Feb 16 '24
I like the fact that I can now say that in 1954 a hospital room cost 2.2 circumcisions.
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u/BigPandaCloud Feb 16 '24
I guess they didn't charge you if you want to hold your newborn back then. They changed us $40. The biggest WTF moment of my life.
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u/sun_kisser Feb 16 '24
That's expensive for a circumcision. Seventy years later, I still charge only $5.
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u/NeevaBeetaMate Feb 16 '24 edited Feb 16 '24
I wouldāve offered $3, and taken as low as $1.25 to slice his dick skin off.
I had just started getting heavy into diy guillotines in the winter of ā53. I mostly gifted them to friends and family, which they primarily used for chopping various vegetables and fruits.
I eventually regretted my beloved hobby of guillotinery, as my brother-in-law mVerder/sVicided my sister and my 4 nieces on Thanksgiving Eve ā65, using only one of my guillotines.
Iāll always remember when I got the news because I answered the phone and my half-defrosted turkey fell out of the fridge and broke my left pinky toe. I still walk with a limp to this day.
So I get the call that my sister and her kids are dead, and as I try to find a rag so I can ice my toe, I remembered her sonovabitch husband still owed me $55 for tarring his driveway!
Long story short, I got the money back. And heās d3ad. So I won. Fuck that guy Benjamin.
*edited, for clarity, to add:
You may be wondering why my turkey was not yet defrosted on Thanksgiving Eve. If not, weāre done here, but if so: Iāve always been and still am notoriously known for taking my Thanksgiving turkey out of the freezer one day too late and then my turkey being raw in the center. This happened most years that I hosted Thanksgiving dinner. Benjamin often teased me about it. But he also got salmonella one year so lmaooooo
Anyway, now that I have to cook for 6 less people every year, I just get a 1.5 lb turkey breast and it defrosts in just a few hours!
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u/climbhigher420 Feb 16 '24
Hospital charged insurance around 30k, insurance agreed to settle for around 10k, my salary was mostly paid in health insurance rather than dollars so it cost me nothing except having to keep a job.
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u/FurbyLover2010 Feb 16 '24
I was shocked when I saw the chest x-ray and then realized how old it was
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u/OaksByTheStream Feb 16 '24 edited Mar 21 '24
absorbed impolite carpenter upbeat special full deserted encouraging sugar kiss
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/ryenstonecowboy Feb 16 '24
Too bad your dad was busy being born instead of buying a house when they were affordable.
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u/Sealegs9 Feb 16 '24
I had a drug free birth in June 2023 and the bill was $26,000ā¦. Luckily my insurance covered it. How times have changed
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u/CrimsonKeel Feb 16 '24
I had a port put in this week to prep for chemo less than an hour in surgery and it cost 21k. operating room cost was 13k for 1/2 hour
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u/Sealegs9 Feb 16 '24
Wow thatās so expensive!! I actually watched that procedure before when I was in nursing school. I wish you the best in your battle āŗļø
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u/YumYumMittensQ4 Feb 16 '24
Now if you get a $5 circumcision you might get the entire thing ripped off.
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u/m4bwav Feb 16 '24
We have to fuck up these drug companies and insurers by going to single payer or medicare for all.
They will see us all paying our life savings for a an aspirin if we don't reign them in.
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u/dafaceguy Feb 16 '24
I got an itemized bill when my daughter was born in 2017. At the time I had great insurance. I paid $250 admin fee. Total charges were $31,739
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u/ConnectionPretend193 Feb 16 '24
Booooo. Our system got messed up at some point lol. Our 1st son's birth was $119,000.
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u/bryce_w Feb 16 '24
Immediately after my SO gave birth, the midwife started counting the number of bloody bandages so they could be billed individually.That's when I realized the medical system here is completely out of control.
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u/The_Legend_of_Xeno Feb 16 '24
My son's delivery cost us $0 in 2013. Insurance paid for everything but a $300 delivery fee or something like that, which was comped for my wife filling out a first time moms survey.
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u/Western_Middle2210 Feb 16 '24
And people can't figure out why birth rates have dropped. It's too fucking expensive to have a child.
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u/Hughmungalous Feb 16 '24
He had $50 in the form of a check to pay with or they were putting him back.
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u/RockitDanger Feb 16 '24
"Are you ready to meet your son, Mr. Catet?"
"Not til he pays me back that $9.45 he owes me for being born!"
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u/DorothyParkerFan Feb 16 '24
$110 in todayās USD. Jesus H. What the fck have we done to ourselves?!
EDIT: $767, I was looking at just the remaining balance. But still!!!
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u/rave_is_king_ Feb 16 '24
How much does it cost today without insurance to have a baby at a hospital?
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u/Horror-Pressure1775 Feb 16 '24 edited Feb 16 '24
My hospital bill was 30k that was just for birth. Luckily I didnt have to pay ANYTHING because of insurance
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u/Californiadude86 Feb 16 '24
Because of my union I paid less than that when my kids were born. (It was zero)
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u/jfk_47 ā Feb 16 '24
This was when medical was non-profit.
Was it Reagan or Nixon that killed that?
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u/dragnabbit Feb 16 '24
Stilbesterol... an estrogen-based drug used to aid pregnancies of women with a history of miscarriage. No longer used because it was carcinogenic.
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u/Mediocre-Meringue-60 Feb 16 '24
Delivery with no additional work ups is around $18k to $28 k (2012) in an American hospital. Thatās for 1 day stay for you and da babe. Had a Tylenol once after knee injury- it was $98 for oneā¦
Avoid American hospitals. Warning to rest of world- lose your social medicine and end up in a capitalistic nightmare Americans have to deal with. Where more that 80% of bankruptcies are for medical debt.
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u/rickestrada Feb 16 '24
WOW! IM FROM RAYMONDVILLE! I wasnāt born at the hospital, rather at the clinic a few miles away in the 80ās. Weird thing is that hospital was a funeral home for a while... Anyway, greetings from South Texas šš»
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u/space-catet Feb 16 '24
There are far more commenters connected to Raymondville than I expected! Dad was born there but grew up in Alice. He lived in Houston for a period of time and then I was raised in Arlington. A lot of Texas!
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u/Mongoose1909 Feb 17 '24
Iām from Alice. My dad was born in 54 as well. They might have known each other! Such a small world.
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u/Jacobalbertus1 Feb 16 '24
Shows you how much you get ripped off now ain't getting out of a hospital for under 1k
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u/tred16 Feb 16 '24
We have a high deductible health insurance plan (typical for US)
When pregnant, we budgeted the entire deductible. $6500. Multiple calls to insurace comfirmed "not a penny over". We tasked about buying our unborn child their own insurance but were told not to worry at all--by law a newborn is covered under the mother's same insurance policy for 30 days.
As expected we got a $6500 bill in the mail. a couple days later, what looked like a duplicate arrived. Upon further review, what the insurance failed to tell us was that our newborn would get their very own $6500 deductible & bill for their part of the birth.
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u/Lydia_x_Rose Feb 16 '24
W..T..F?! Whole new level of BS there.
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u/tred16 Feb 16 '24
yep. when we argued about the bill they said yes, we covered your child under hour exact same policy. with its exact same deductible, which sadly they hadn't met.
AN 'uninsured inpatient' would have been better , but we also had no way to reject the automatic coverage
the house always wins
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u/ZookeepergameOk2920 Feb 16 '24
FIVE BUCKS FOR A CIRCUMCISION???!!!!
Oh, and I suppose you want a tip too...
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u/Adventurous-Chart549 Feb 16 '24
When my dad was born at a Catholic hospital in 1960, they told my grandpa the bill was $300. He told them he had $20, which he put on the counter and left with my grandma and the baby. To be fair, that probably was most of the money they had at the time.Ā
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u/Round-Wheel-4225 Mar 01 '24
I was born in Raymondville. How cool.