The Cost of Having a Baby in the U.S.A.

Saw a few anecdotes about the cost of having a baby over on Reddit.  Even after adjusting for inflation, it’s clear the the cost of having a child in the U.S. is through the roof.

VitriolicMasquerade
My grandmother gave birth to two children; one in 1961, the other in 1965.
The first child cost her $93 in medical bills, the later cost her $101. The price to have a baby in 2005 was roughly 10k without health insurance. I refuse to believe that health care costs for child care have increased 100 fold to the hospital in 50 years, so why have they increased at this rate to the people

Adjusting for inflation, what cost $93 in 1961 would cost $605.49 in 2005.

mindshadow
My daughter that was born this year cost a tad over $20,000. So realy it’s 200 fold.
EDIT: I failed to mention this was a completely normal birth, no neonatal ICU care or anything like that, only 3 days in the hospital. Then, to top it off, I got a $200 bill from the anesthesiologist and a $500 bill from the pediatrician because my insurance that I pay almost $500 a month for decided they would not cover those bills. Still fighting them over that.

evilzebramonkey
My daughter was born just over two years ago. She needed a surgery at birth. I had “top of the line” North Carolina State Employees Health Insurance, for which I paid nearly $500/month out of pocket to cover my wife and 1st child. After all was said and done we paid over $12,000 out of pocket in hospital, Dr., Specialist, Followup, etc. bills during the prenatal and 1st year of her life. I now have a healthy 2yo who is worth every penny…. But that was with “great” insurance. This is a broken system.

fani
We just had our second kid. With full health insurance coverage ( platinum level ), our co-pay was ~3K. The overall bill for the delivery and 3 day hospital stay was approx. $40,000. After all the insurance writeoffs and deductions etc. it was down to ~$22,000 of which I paid ~3000 ( not at once, smaller chunks of co-pays – anasthesia, scans, medicines etc. etc. that totalled ~3000 ).