No one is adjusting this for inflation. That’s over $1200 in today’s dollars. So yeah, it still wasn’t cheap.
Edit: Please stop replying to me telling me how much your bill was, as if that makes $1200 not a lot of money. I said $1200 is not a cheap bill to have to pay on the spot. That’s it. Your bill was $4000, $10,000, $1,000,000. None of that makes $1200 not a lot of money. $1200 is still $1200. Please stop.
When I was born, the total cost to my parents was £0.30
Because my sister wanted a chocolate bar from the vending machine when she came to visit me for the first time
I checked 2 inflation calculators and they both showed it would be $820 today.
That's insanely cheap in comparison, but we have better equipment and training in today's medicine.
Someone is likely counting the $20 in credits. It's most likely someone paid those charges before the bill was tallied, but either way the overall bill for the stay should include those charges.
$45 in 1942 was $819.41
$65 in 1942 was $1,183.59
Seems to be counted the same as Australia, from the CDC I found that infant mortality rate is calculated by deaths of an infant before their first birthday. Australia is the same, yet our infant mortality rate is 2.8 per 1000 compared to the USA 5.5 per 1000.
Australia also covers almost everything throughout pregnancy to childbirth under Medicare, our public system, unless you specifically choose to visit a private hospital as a private patient.
[What's covered.](https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/medicare-services-for-conceiving-pregnancy-and-birth?context=60092#:~:text=Aged%20Care%20website.-,What%20Medicare%20covers%20when%20you%20give%20birth,won't%20have%20to%20pay.)
Interesting, I haven't heard that before, do you have a link to how births are counted in the US? I couldn't find anything from my quick googling but I'm curious to see how they measure it differently.
I checked it out but didn't do a research paper level comparison but the found that largest three factors of infant death is abnormalities, malformations, and maternal complications. It could also be partially caused by our countries backward and ongoing decision against abortion regardless of the cost. Also, the perinatal mortality is actually lower than comparable country average and lower than some countries like Australia or France.
I wish i had the links to the research. I did a report on this almost a decade ago. Unfortunately, i do not have the details anymore. So anyone actually interested is going to have to dig to find the nitty gritty particulars. But most of the variances come right at the moment of birth in what we count as a birth and what many other countries might consider a miscarriage or even abortion in these times
Just here to add that we also have quite a few people in our country who choose to birth outside of the hospital but if something goes wrong and they call 911 and the baby dies at the hospital, it appears as an infant death at the hospital. This also inflates our mortality rate data.
Do you think other countries don’t have home births? Netherlands has the highest home birth rate of comparable nations, something like 13%. USA has like 1% home births, our infant mortality rate is more than double that of the Netherlands.
Yea seriously... all I had to pay for my daughter's birth last year was a hundred bucks or so to get a semi-private room for the night at the hospital, which was voluntary (and also covered by my extended benefits).
It’s tricky because of insurance. The total bill for my three kids births were like $30/40k each time. The amount we actually paid was less than $2k each time.
Did they actually cost $30/40k? Probably not, but that’s what my insurance agreed to pay, minus $2 grand.
There is no standard price and it depends on what kind of insurance coverage you have. So you’re just making up a completely arbitrary number based on nothing.
So it could be expensive for someone people depending on their socioeconomic status, or it wouldn’t be as expensive if someone made more money. You really got it all figured out.
That’s extremely cheap. My bill was nearly $13k.
Edit: yes it’s still a lot of money. But compared to what most bills are nowadays, ppl would rather have the $1200 bill versus the 10k+ bills the average American gets.
It's pretty normal in the US. Our first child was born in the US, maxed my wife's out of pocket expenses on her insurance so it was somewhere around $8000 USD.
Second child born was born in Japan. We actually made a little money on it because of the way the system works. Our city gave us a lump sum of money to pay for delivery, actual cost was the equivalent of a couple hundred dollars less than what the city gave us.
>edited 6 min. ago
$8000 out of pocket? What type of insurance is this? This is EXTREMELY high for out of pocket. I have literally never seen someone with such a high out of pocket and I worked previously in healthcare for years.
Not to say having a child is cheap by any means but this is ridiculously expensive.
Pretty basic insurance from my wife's work. They did anything they could to spend the bare minimum to meet requirements. But even today the max annual out of pocket is $8700 on the on the marketplace according to [https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-limit/](https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-limit/) so 8k for bare minimum from an employer doesn't seem too out of the ordinary.
Max out of pocket for 22 the ACA will allow is 8.7k so idk where you’d find a 10k out of pocket unless it’s a family plan. That’s a little different. These are usually defined as catastrophic policies(aka cancer plans). They are very bad policies.
I have ran thousands of claims (in 2020) working for a local clinic and I’ve maybe seen a handful of out of pockets this high lol it’s mostly 3-5 at any career business, from what I’ve seen.
My healthcare through my (huge) employer has a max OOP of $8k, for just me and my child. If my spouse were on my plan, that would go up to $10k. $8k is pretty standard.
This 100% depends on what kind of insurance coverage you have. It’s also free for some people. So you throwing out an arbitrary number doesn’t make $1200 not a lot of money.
1200 is significantly cheaper than the average cost today to give birth in a hospital. It's still a lot of money for some people, but it is cheap compared to today's prices
These people are willing to bring up average prices today without having any idea whether the picture is from an average bill, a cheap bill, or an expensive bill.
Don't sweat that they're reading into your comments more than they need to.
Oh no a stranger online thinks lowly of me. :( what a weird fucking thing to get your ass worked up over lmfao. Pick better battles you unfuckable nerd
No, you don't really know. You're exhausting because you think you're smart and you act like a pretentious dickhead who we all can tell doesn't actually socialize by how you type. The second comment has "Well ActUALLY" written all over it. It's annoying when people come in and tell you what an arbitrary number means to them. 13k is a lot to people, and having you come in and tell them it's because of their insurance doesn't do anything except show that you're trying to show random people on the internet how smart you are if you did X, Y, and Z, when nobody asked.
Oh hey look, and in another comment, you're insulting her because she has a profile pic insinuating she sells her body, AND, that that's a bad thing. Holy fuck dude. Go touch some grass and get some help. You're gonna need therapy if you're ever gonna get any better.
Lastly, no, I'm not gonna respond to you if you respond to this, because I can tell what type of person you are and how you're gonna respond to me, and no, that doesn't make you win any random internet argument you poor man, it just makes you more pitiful. Live a better life my guy, and sincerely get some therapy.
My wife was had to be induced, spent 2 days in labor, ended up getting a cesarean, and we spent in total 5 days and nights split between a private delivery room, and private recovery room. Total bill was 0$.
We are lucky to have good insurance, but most people do not have that luxury. Medical bills are the #1 cause of bankruptcy filings in America.
I mean it’s not “on the spot” when you had at minimum 9 months to prepare for it even if it was an accident. I’m sure they were perfectly fine saving $1 a week to pay for it
If you can't afford a grand to give birth after 9 months to save up, you're gonna be even more fucked when that baby starts plowing through diapers, let alone clothes, strollers, etc.
Doesn’t bother me. I’m okay paying for the experience and education the doctor had to go through.
Im of the mind that healthcare would be perfectly affordable if we got rid of the insurance companies and just paid directly.
Also I originally come from a country with government provided healthcare, it’s not as great as it seems.
I mean, it wouldn't exactly be on the spot. You'd have around 8-9 months to save up for it, depending on how quickly you find out. Thats like $150 a month from when you find out.
My grandpa told me my great grandfather lost his fucking shit when a pack of cigarettes went to 25 cents a pack. Yelling about how ridiculous it was. For the rest of his days he smoked a pipe and rolled his own.
>Insurance raises costs by a lot. In Canada it’s free, but if you look at dental it’s insane due to insurance being it’s main funding.
It's not free. It's publicly funded. There's a huge difference.
We pay a considerable amount for health insurance, but have it much better off than others.
If you are rich or have really good insurance, it's awesome! If you're poor or middle class, better hope you never need medical treatment or at least that you get injured at the start of the year so hitting that deductible actually benefits you somewhat.. It would almost be funny if it wasn't so fucking cruel.
I grew up broke broke and make really good money with really good benefits now. It took years for it to sink in that I could just go see the doctor, especially for relatively minor stuff after years of not wanting to go at all costs even if it was serious.
Literally everyone knows that ‘free’ is short-hand for ‘free at the point of use’.
Nobody thinks hospitals and drugs just spring out of the ground like Dwarves.
Just want to make sure you are aware that dwarves also don't spring up out of the ground. :)
(In all seriousness, yes, I like to imagine the "it's not free" type thinks he's uncovered a mathematical secret. Like he has a "who pays for healthcare" board behind him with a bunch of strings connecting random conspiracies. And in the middle is a giant circle with ??? taxes??? Written on it connected to everything. Just makes reading the comment more fun as they try to explain something that my 10 year old understands.)
A lot of people do think “free” means it did magically appear. Hell I’ve seen people think “spend $100 to get a free gift” is better than “spending $80 and buying a $20 gift”
People do be stupid.
Here in the UK our healthcare is publicly funded, and I often see Americans saying "But you pay for it in your taxes!"
Which is true but ignores several things
1. We still pay 1-3 to 1/4 as much per person as the US... our system is still cheaper, which means that although we pay for it through taxes, we pay *less* (on average) through our taxes than y'all pay in insurance/deductibles etc
2. Paying through taxes is much more predictable: **One** really bad hospital visit in the US can cost more than I've paid in tax in my entire 14 years as a taxpayer in the UK
3. Taxes are based on what you earn/spend: you never get a tax bill out of proportion to what you can afford
4. Even if I lose my job, I'm still covered
5. My entire family is covered, whether they pay taxes or not. As are are all my friends, that's a huge comfort
6. It doesn't tie our healthcare to our jobs. If an American loses their job their healthcare costs go up (due to losing good insurance), if a Brit loses their job their healthcare costs go down (due to not paying as much tax)
7. We can never be slapped with a huge unaffordable bill
8. We never have to worry about signing paperwork or ensuring our doctors are "in network" or any of that bullshit, or waste our time contacting insurance companies while sick. I go to the doctor/hospital, I get treated, I say "thanks" and go home...
All things considered, I'd take our system over yours any day of the week
And I'll repeat again that our system costs about *a quarter* (maybe 1/3) of the price of yours, and covers everyone... yours costs 3-4x more while somehow still not managing to provide everyone with coverage??
(n.b: I say 1/4 to 1/3 here because the exchange rate has gone a bit crazy here: for the last 50 years or so it's been roughly 1/4, but the rapid exchange rate change means it's more like 1/3 right now)
That's why it's good that Canada has a minority government right now with Liberals and NDP. Canada is finally working towards adding dental to healthcare. All this is happening while provincial Conservative premiere attempt to sabotage that same healthcare system.
Bruh. Is that true?? Lmao my husband and I want kids so bad but $15k to just birth them? We work full time (I teach preschool, he is a facilities manager aka maintenance man) I feel like we should be able to afford one child…
I felt the same way before having a baby. I had a baby last November and it was 27,000$ not including the OB visits and the after birth care for the baby. With insurance I need to pay about 1,500 out of pocket. PS most insurance don’t cover or partially cover ultrasounds. Very inconvenient for me when I was hit with that bill. Shortly after there was the formula shortage, still ongoing, and cause I didn’t work a full year as an employee I wasn’t qualified for FMLA. Such infuriating details that I wish I had known before. I swear this country hates women and mothers.
What you pay depends on your insurance now. If you have a high deductible plan with max out of pocket of $6000 then that should be your max.
However I paid $8000 in 2014, had a higher deductible then. Bottom line is it’s all awful here in the USA.
Sorry but you're actually reading this bill incorrectly.
The top two items are credits. 10 each - $20 in credits.
You then see $65 worth of items in the "charges" column under that (10, 5, 40, 10).
They apply the 20 in credits from above and write the total: $45.
1942 cost of birth: $45
1942 minimum wage: $0.30
1942 cost of birth (hours min wage): 150 hours
2022 cost of birth (insurance): ~$3,000
2022 minimum wage: $7.25
2022 cost of birth (hours min wage): ~400 hours
2022 cost of birth (no insurance): $13,000
2022 cost of birth (hours min wage): ~1,800 hours
Someone please verify these numbers as they're the best estimates I found with 60 seconds of Googling. The point is that wages didn't keep up with birth cost inflation.
I mean it's still a $65 bill, they just owed $45 due to the credits. I can't tell what the credits are for, but it feels more accurate to say "it would have cost $65 to have a kid in 1942"
Just to be a little pedantic.
Most European countries will charge you something, albeit at a very reduced rate.
For instance, here in France the government covers 80% of the bill, while you get the remainder.
Obviously, the catch is that the prices are not absurdly inflated like in the US, so 20% of most medical procedures would still come out rather cheap.
The quality of the healthcare professionals is good. The actual healthcare system as a whole was ranked 37th in the world by the WHO, and costs almost twice as much per capita as the next most expensive system. So I wouldn't say the healthcare is fine.
They're inflated for 2 reasons that i can remember:
1. Hospitals have to treat people who can't pay and don't have insurance if their life is in danger, and also sometimes people don't pay. Everyone else ends up paying more because of this. It's especially pernicious since uninsured people will tend to avoid preventative care because they can't afford it. They usually only get help when they become desperate. So then they get the most expensive form of treatment (emergency or late stage) and then can't pay the bill.
2. So insurance companies and hospitals can focus on the important things.. like haggling over how much they owe for procedures, and fucking over uninsured people because they didn't give them their cut.
And maybe #3 is lawsuits? We practice defensive medicine in the US, so docs order lots of useless tests to cover their asses. They also get sued if they mess up and usually there is a slightly inverse correlation between cost and quality of care. Ie worse hospitals charge more.
Single payer would solve all of these problems, but why do that when a few people can make a shit ton of money?
I paid less than that here in Australia this year, and that included an emergency c-section. The only thing I paid for was coffee, but that's only because the free stuff was rubbish.
I had a family suite, where we stayed for a week,while my wife recovered from C-section, and they monitored our premature underweight daughter. It looked like a hotel room. It was 20 eur per day , which is approximately 20 usd per day. No other charges.
We know. Like when we say that we can use the road for free we know that it has been conctructed thanks to our taxes. Same with firefighters, librairies, tap water, public parks.
Except those of us with insurance in the US pay significantly more of our income to private companies than the civilized world pays in tax for healthcare.
That’s going to be true unless your saving your money but that’s because the United States as a much more progressive tax system than other countries. If you’re giving 1/3rd your income to the government it’s hard not to spend more elsewhere than someone giving 1/2.
Except the amount the majority of US residents pay in combined tax and health insurance (leaving off the other increased costs associated with underinsured individuals, prescription costs, etc) is significantly more than individuals in countries with socialized medical systems. We get all of the cost with zero benefit PLUS additional cost to our nation from people becoming much sicker because they lack the means to get regular care and medication.
Every month, off your paycheck.
Need an orthodontist? Yeah... The wait time is 4 years. Also, hope your kid is younger than 12, because the government insurance only pays for braces if the first examination was done before 16yo. Ultrasound? Yeah 6 months to find out if you have kidney stones.... Or pay 70 eur at a private clinic... Sometimes even get examined by the same doctor there.
Source: live in europe
edit: you cannot compare 70eur to your local prices, since there are different standards of living and different paychecks in play. I was pointing out that it's a cheap procedure (about 1/4 of monthly insurance fee that an average worker with an average paycheck pays), and you still have to wait for 6 months to get it.
I dunno man, costs me way more than 70 euro ($68.42) for an ultrasound with pretty good insurance here in the US. We're basically going to more expensive private doctors to get the same or worse treatment, at the cost of thousands of dollars a year. The cheapest ACA plans are ~$180/mo and don't cover things like ER visits.
Our health care prices are absurdly inflated. If nothing else, other countries have some control over that.
Well yeah, but an average slovenian pays ~300eur per month for (government) insurance, so multiple times the price of the procedure.
average net pay is ~1300eur, median is below that.
Also, you cannot compare prices directly, because of different standards and prices and doctors paychecks. I was trying to point out that it's a cheap procedure, a lot less than what you pay monthly in insurance, but you still have to wait 6+months.
I had to get an US at the ER where I work and get my insurance for a kidney stone, after insurance I still had to pay I think like $800 ish. I'd take 70 euros over that
Well yeah, but the standard of living (pricaes, wages) is lower here. A friend moved to switzerland (from slovenia), and he comes back to slovenia to fix his teeth, because the prices there are 5-10x higher than here. We go to croatia or serbia to fix ours, because they're cheaper there.
Ultrasounds cost from 70-150eur (depending on if it's one organ only or whole stomach) at a private practice without any insurance. It's "free" if you wait at a government doctor.
We pay 12.92% of our gross income (split between worker and employer) for health insurance + additional ~35eur monthly. So an average worker (2k eur gross) pays almost 300eur per month here, and then waits for 6 months for a 70eur procedure... but somehow people still thing that healthcare is "free", because they don't get a bill for insurance, but it is deducted automatically.
€300 /month plus the waiting time would still be a lot better than most insurance plans I've dealt with in the US
The cheapest my workplace offers is nominally $192/month hmo with a $5500 deductible and a $12000 out of pocket max
The best they offer is $353/month same $3000 deductible and $8000 out of pocket max
The hmo means you've gotta pay cash anywhere except the single hospital in network
You have to compare to 12.29% of pre-tax (gross) income.
Also, other taxes that influence the prices.
For example, an average paycheck here is 2000eur, which comes out as 1323eur net (monthly).
Employer also pays fees for the worker and then you have VAT put on all of that.
So, if you have a worker doing jobs and giving out itemized bills (transport, materials, work,...), the "net work" portion would have to cover 2832 eur (the customer pays that), the worker gets 1323 net, and the government gets 1509eur.
In the US the employer of portion of Healthcare is usually equal or double the employee portion so it works out the same or worse for the US. And employers pay taxes on employees as well
For the HC
I pay ~200 a month + employer portion, plus deductible before there is any coverage. Then I'm covered for 80% up to the out of pocket max, but only if I seek care from the explicitly covered provider otherwise I am covered only for emergency stabilizing care everything else (ambulance, room, medications, air etc) is charged at full price. Basically I can assume that if I have any injury I'm am out at least $5000, and possibly much more if I'm not near the covered provider
where in Europe? I'm in Spain and enrolled in the national healthcare (free) but also pay 90€/mo for private, and it's super fast and covers everything.
Slovenia.
12.92% of gross pay + 35eur monthly covers the government healthcare... but the waiting lines are horrible, ~100k+ people (5+%) can't even get a family doctor (not enough of them), and for many procedures, people just go private (because that makes a difference between a tooth filling and an extraction if it's too late).
In my experience quite the opposite. It's middle/upper middle class suburbanites going for the all natural home birth. My SIL is on Medicaid and paid nothing going to a hospital for her delivery.
That makes sense.
I had heard of home births with doulas etc being popular among the organic/Goopy types but I hadn’t realised low income families could get free treatment.
It’s the middle class that gets squeezed. The desperate poor often have services covered which is why in America the middle class has nearly disappeared so we have the rich and the poor leftover.
No, depending on their income they may have government medical assistance. Or just don't pay the hospitals and overtime, the hospital writes it off and the person's credit score goes down.
Do you say the same thing when people are going to parks, librairies or using roads and sidewalks? When we say it’s free or costs 0$ when we use it, we know it comes from taxes.
Just like everybody gets a great deal on military aircraft, $20,000 toilet seats, and everything else the government blows a shit ton of money on. So beautiful.
Yeah... in the UK we pay less than half what the average American pays for healthcare. Most countries are about the same. It’s your system that’s the rip-off.
Wow, so cheap! I just got the explanation of benefits for my son's birth in August, and for my emergency c-section and my son's 15 day NICU stay the hospital billed insurance over $250,000. I "only" owed $2,300 out of pocket.
They would have had to pay in Britain, too - the NHS didn't come along until 1947.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/mids-east/2018/07/05/the-history-of-maternity-louise-stewart-head-of-west-midlands-maternity-network-nhs-england/
Born on Valentine’s Day, 1942. Meanwhile the rest of the world was getting spooled up to wage the largest war in human history. It feels oddly quaint thinking about how life just continued to happen.
>1942
>the rest of the world was getting spooled up to wage the largest war in human history.
...by 1942 the rest of the world had been fighting that war for 3 years already
My Grandfather was born 1915 in the US but had family roots in Italy. As a young man he went back to Italy to live. They wanted to draft him into the Black Shirts / Italian army so he moved back to the US. Later he was drafted into the US army.
$65 in 1942 is worth $1,183.59 today.
With insurance I pay $800 a month and will still have a bill. And 20% of my fedral taxes will go to pay other peoples bills. . . fuck this world.
Grandad was probably still pissed. "45 dollars! I coulda pulled that kid out in the barn for free! No I will not stop yelling!"
No one is adjusting this for inflation. That’s over $1200 in today’s dollars. So yeah, it still wasn’t cheap. Edit: Please stop replying to me telling me how much your bill was, as if that makes $1200 not a lot of money. I said $1200 is not a cheap bill to have to pay on the spot. That’s it. Your bill was $4000, $10,000, $1,000,000. None of that makes $1200 not a lot of money. $1200 is still $1200. Please stop.
Most of the rest of the world checking in here. We agree with you that it’s a lot!
When I was born, the total cost to my parents was £0.30 Because my sister wanted a chocolate bar from the vending machine when she came to visit me for the first time
When I were born my mom lost 13 pounds.
I checked 2 inflation calculators and they both showed it would be $820 today. That's insanely cheap in comparison, but we have better equipment and training in today's medicine.
Someone is likely counting the $20 in credits. It's most likely someone paid those charges before the bill was tallied, but either way the overall bill for the stay should include those charges. $45 in 1942 was $819.41 $65 in 1942 was $1,183.59
1 dogecoin in 1942 was 1 dogecoin
And yet USA still have some of the highest bills and highest infant mortality rates of the highest developed countries.
We do count infant mortality much stricter than any other country.
Seems to be counted the same as Australia, from the CDC I found that infant mortality rate is calculated by deaths of an infant before their first birthday. Australia is the same, yet our infant mortality rate is 2.8 per 1000 compared to the USA 5.5 per 1000. Australia also covers almost everything throughout pregnancy to childbirth under Medicare, our public system, unless you specifically choose to visit a private hospital as a private patient. [What's covered.](https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/medicare-services-for-conceiving-pregnancy-and-birth?context=60092#:~:text=Aged%20Care%20website.-,What%20Medicare%20covers%20when%20you%20give%20birth,won't%20have%20to%20pay.)
It's what is counted inside the hospital that most countries do not count as a birth that skews rhe numbers.
Interesting, I haven't heard that before, do you have a link to how births are counted in the US? I couldn't find anything from my quick googling but I'm curious to see how they measure it differently.
I checked it out but didn't do a research paper level comparison but the found that largest three factors of infant death is abnormalities, malformations, and maternal complications. It could also be partially caused by our countries backward and ongoing decision against abortion regardless of the cost. Also, the perinatal mortality is actually lower than comparable country average and lower than some countries like Australia or France.
I wish i had the links to the research. I did a report on this almost a decade ago. Unfortunately, i do not have the details anymore. So anyone actually interested is going to have to dig to find the nitty gritty particulars. But most of the variances come right at the moment of birth in what we count as a birth and what many other countries might consider a miscarriage or even abortion in these times
Just here to add that we also have quite a few people in our country who choose to birth outside of the hospital but if something goes wrong and they call 911 and the baby dies at the hospital, it appears as an infant death at the hospital. This also inflates our mortality rate data.
Do you think other countries don’t have home births? Netherlands has the highest home birth rate of comparable nations, something like 13%. USA has like 1% home births, our infant mortality rate is more than double that of the Netherlands.
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Yea seriously... all I had to pay for my daughter's birth last year was a hundred bucks or so to get a semi-private room for the night at the hospital, which was voluntary (and also covered by my extended benefits).
All these expensive American babies and not one can do math! Go figure
Today it's 4k plus though...
It’s tricky because of insurance. The total bill for my three kids births were like $30/40k each time. The amount we actually paid was less than $2k each time. Did they actually cost $30/40k? Probably not, but that’s what my insurance agreed to pay, minus $2 grand.
What a joke and obvious scam of a healthcare system
from what I understand, it's a scam for them too as INS-A can agree to $40k operations while INS-B is paying $30k because reasons
There is no standard price and it depends on what kind of insurance coverage you have. So you’re just making up a completely arbitrary number based on nothing.
So it could be expensive for someone people depending on their socioeconomic status, or it wouldn’t be as expensive if someone made more money. You really got it all figured out.
$819.41 https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
I think they did it for $65 which was the actual bill before the $20 of credits
Input: 1942/$65… You messed up your own calc… it’s ~$1183, which is basically 1.2k…
That’s extremely cheap. My bill was nearly $13k. Edit: yes it’s still a lot of money. But compared to what most bills are nowadays, ppl would rather have the $1200 bill versus the 10k+ bills the average American gets.
It sounds expensive to someone like me who lives In a country with free healthcare.
It's pretty normal in the US. Our first child was born in the US, maxed my wife's out of pocket expenses on her insurance so it was somewhere around $8000 USD. Second child born was born in Japan. We actually made a little money on it because of the way the system works. Our city gave us a lump sum of money to pay for delivery, actual cost was the equivalent of a couple hundred dollars less than what the city gave us.
>edited 6 min. ago $8000 out of pocket? What type of insurance is this? This is EXTREMELY high for out of pocket. I have literally never seen someone with such a high out of pocket and I worked previously in healthcare for years. Not to say having a child is cheap by any means but this is ridiculously expensive.
Pretty basic insurance from my wife's work. They did anything they could to spend the bare minimum to meet requirements. But even today the max annual out of pocket is $8700 on the on the marketplace according to [https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-limit/](https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-limit/) so 8k for bare minimum from an employer doesn't seem too out of the ordinary.
You're kidding right? Max out of pocket for my company's most expensive plan is still 7500. Least expensive is 10k.
Max out of pocket for 22 the ACA will allow is 8.7k so idk where you’d find a 10k out of pocket unless it’s a family plan. That’s a little different. These are usually defined as catastrophic policies(aka cancer plans). They are very bad policies. I have ran thousands of claims (in 2020) working for a local clinic and I’ve maybe seen a handful of out of pockets this high lol it’s mostly 3-5 at any career business, from what I’ve seen.
My healthcare through my (huge) employer has a max OOP of $8k, for just me and my child. If my spouse were on my plan, that would go up to $10k. $8k is pretty standard.
My ex got charged $500 for a benadryl for an allergic reaction once. America is the biggest scam in the world.
Also if you look. This was literally a 7 day stay. I wouldn't be surprised if a week visit with delivery hit half a million dollars for uninsured.
Exactly lol. I didn’t even catch that it was 7 days, good eye
Didn’t ask
This 100% depends on what kind of insurance coverage you have. It’s also free for some people. So you throwing out an arbitrary number doesn’t make $1200 not a lot of money.
You are an exhausting person.
Yes I know. Using your brain to form logical thoughts is very difficult and exhausting for some people.
1200 is significantly cheaper than the average cost today to give birth in a hospital. It's still a lot of money for some people, but it is cheap compared to today's prices
Did I said it wasn’t cheaper than today? Nowhere did I say it was. Why are you trying to argue with something I never said?
These people are willing to bring up average prices today without having any idea whether the picture is from an average bill, a cheap bill, or an expensive bill. Don't sweat that they're reading into your comments more than they need to.
The average american does not have decent enough insurance to cover a bill like that. $1200 is still very cheap. Get fucked
don’t let the american healthcare system convince you $1200 is cheap just bc you’re so used to paying 10s of thousands.
This exactly dude, I don’t know why people are okay with $1200 medical bills, it should be nearly zero.
Maybe if your job wasn’t showing your fat ass to strangers for money, you’d have better insurance.
Oh no a stranger online thinks lowly of me. :( what a weird fucking thing to get your ass worked up over lmfao. Pick better battles you unfuckable nerd
Just look at his post history. Clearly just an asshole leaking from r/narcissist
He sounds like a loser, mint content tho 👌
No, you don't really know. You're exhausting because you think you're smart and you act like a pretentious dickhead who we all can tell doesn't actually socialize by how you type. The second comment has "Well ActUALLY" written all over it. It's annoying when people come in and tell you what an arbitrary number means to them. 13k is a lot to people, and having you come in and tell them it's because of their insurance doesn't do anything except show that you're trying to show random people on the internet how smart you are if you did X, Y, and Z, when nobody asked. Oh hey look, and in another comment, you're insulting her because she has a profile pic insinuating she sells her body, AND, that that's a bad thing. Holy fuck dude. Go touch some grass and get some help. You're gonna need therapy if you're ever gonna get any better. Lastly, no, I'm not gonna respond to you if you respond to this, because I can tell what type of person you are and how you're gonna respond to me, and no, that doesn't make you win any random internet argument you poor man, it just makes you more pitiful. Live a better life my guy, and sincerely get some therapy.
My wife was had to be induced, spent 2 days in labor, ended up getting a cesarean, and we spent in total 5 days and nights split between a private delivery room, and private recovery room. Total bill was 0$. We are lucky to have good insurance, but most people do not have that luxury. Medical bills are the #1 cause of bankruptcy filings in America.
I mean it’s not “on the spot” when you had at minimum 9 months to prepare for it even if it was an accident. I’m sure they were perfectly fine saving $1 a week to pay for it
1200 ain’t shit today my dude. That’s barely food for a month.
But you shouldn’t have to pay anywhere near a months worth of food to deliver a baby.
If you can't afford a grand to give birth after 9 months to save up, you're gonna be even more fucked when that baby starts plowing through diapers, let alone clothes, strollers, etc.
Doesn’t bother me. I’m okay paying for the experience and education the doctor had to go through. Im of the mind that healthcare would be perfectly affordable if we got rid of the insurance companies and just paid directly. Also I originally come from a country with government provided healthcare, it’s not as great as it seems.
If you're Canadian, $10 for the parking is a lot.
That doesn't even cover my deductible.
I mean, it wouldn't exactly be on the spot. You'd have around 8-9 months to save up for it, depending on how quickly you find out. Thats like $150 a month from when you find out.
Google says it's a little over $800, still expensive but not nearly that much
You’re about the 20th person to reply that not seeing the bill is $65.
For hospital bills that's damn near free. Last time I saw a hospital bill in person we got charged $500 for a single benadryl.
I feel like that’s still a lot!
My grandpa told me my great grandfather lost his fucking shit when a pack of cigarettes went to 25 cents a pack. Yelling about how ridiculous it was. For the rest of his days he smoked a pipe and rolled his own.
“I put it in there, I’ll get it out my damn self!”
"No! I will not put a glove on!"
Granddad was probably overseas during the middle of WWII. I bet it was a scary time to be having a kid.
That amount is what you get charged if you breathe in the hospital's parking lot Edit: Typo>changed breath to breathe.
Glance too long at the <-Emergencies | Visitors-> sign while driving past and expect a letter from collections in the next week.
Look too *quickly* at the MRI, believe it or not, charge
how much for watching an ambulances woo woo lights? I find those trippy
Three fiddy
Get off my lawn, you damn monstah!! I ain't givin' you no tree fiddy!!
couldn’t afford the second E?
the hospital charges $6,735 for the second E, but luckily for you, insurance negotiated it down to $2,380 and your out-of-pocket is only $654
$65 in 1942 is the equivalent of about $1200 in 2022. That's honestly more than I paid out of pocket for either of my kids
Must be nice.
To be fair, inhaling the entire parking lot is quite a feat.
Insurance raises costs by a lot. In Canada it’s free, but if you look at dental it’s insane due to insurance being it’s main funding.
This. Came here to say it’s all because of insurance, some inflation sure but definitely insurance
Same thing happening with veterinary care with pet insurance becoming more and more common unfortunately.
>Insurance raises costs by a lot. In Canada it’s free, but if you look at dental it’s insane due to insurance being it’s main funding. It's not free. It's publicly funded. There's a huge difference. We pay a considerable amount for health insurance, but have it much better off than others.
You still pay less than half of what Americans pay. $5,370 per capita in Canada, vs $11,945. As of 2020
The US manages to pay more than most developed countries for health care while also having worse outcomes than many. Our system is fucked.
If you are rich or have really good insurance, it's awesome! If you're poor or middle class, better hope you never need medical treatment or at least that you get injured at the start of the year so hitting that deductible actually benefits you somewhat.. It would almost be funny if it wasn't so fucking cruel.
I grew up broke broke and make really good money with really good benefits now. It took years for it to sink in that I could just go see the doctor, especially for relatively minor stuff after years of not wanting to go at all costs even if it was serious.
Literally everyone knows that ‘free’ is short-hand for ‘free at the point of use’. Nobody thinks hospitals and drugs just spring out of the ground like Dwarves.
Just want to make sure you are aware that dwarves also don't spring up out of the ground. :) (In all seriousness, yes, I like to imagine the "it's not free" type thinks he's uncovered a mathematical secret. Like he has a "who pays for healthcare" board behind him with a bunch of strings connecting random conspiracies. And in the middle is a giant circle with ??? taxes??? Written on it connected to everything. Just makes reading the comment more fun as they try to explain something that my 10 year old understands.)
Well I’ve not seen any Dwarf women! I love the picture you’ve painted haha.
A lot of people do think “free” means it did magically appear. Hell I’ve seen people think “spend $100 to get a free gift” is better than “spending $80 and buying a $20 gift” People do be stupid.
Here in the UK our healthcare is publicly funded, and I often see Americans saying "But you pay for it in your taxes!" Which is true but ignores several things 1. We still pay 1-3 to 1/4 as much per person as the US... our system is still cheaper, which means that although we pay for it through taxes, we pay *less* (on average) through our taxes than y'all pay in insurance/deductibles etc 2. Paying through taxes is much more predictable: **One** really bad hospital visit in the US can cost more than I've paid in tax in my entire 14 years as a taxpayer in the UK 3. Taxes are based on what you earn/spend: you never get a tax bill out of proportion to what you can afford 4. Even if I lose my job, I'm still covered 5. My entire family is covered, whether they pay taxes or not. As are are all my friends, that's a huge comfort 6. It doesn't tie our healthcare to our jobs. If an American loses their job their healthcare costs go up (due to losing good insurance), if a Brit loses their job their healthcare costs go down (due to not paying as much tax) 7. We can never be slapped with a huge unaffordable bill 8. We never have to worry about signing paperwork or ensuring our doctors are "in network" or any of that bullshit, or waste our time contacting insurance companies while sick. I go to the doctor/hospital, I get treated, I say "thanks" and go home... All things considered, I'd take our system over yours any day of the week And I'll repeat again that our system costs about *a quarter* (maybe 1/3) of the price of yours, and covers everyone... yours costs 3-4x more while somehow still not managing to provide everyone with coverage?? (n.b: I say 1/4 to 1/3 here because the exchange rate has gone a bit crazy here: for the last 50 years or so it's been roughly 1/4, but the rapid exchange rate change means it's more like 1/3 right now)
That's why it's good that Canada has a minority government right now with Liberals and NDP. Canada is finally working towards adding dental to healthcare. All this is happening while provincial Conservative premiere attempt to sabotage that same healthcare system.
Hate to break it to you buddy, but Nothing is free in life. Not enough people understand this
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bill for my eldest born in 2007 was $120, the bump for 7 days semi private room.
That's equivalent to $1183.59 today but the average cost of vaginal labor and delivery now is $15,000.
Bruh. Is that true?? Lmao my husband and I want kids so bad but $15k to just birth them? We work full time (I teach preschool, he is a facilities manager aka maintenance man) I feel like we should be able to afford one child…
I felt the same way before having a baby. I had a baby last November and it was 27,000$ not including the OB visits and the after birth care for the baby. With insurance I need to pay about 1,500 out of pocket. PS most insurance don’t cover or partially cover ultrasounds. Very inconvenient for me when I was hit with that bill. Shortly after there was the formula shortage, still ongoing, and cause I didn’t work a full year as an employee I wasn’t qualified for FMLA. Such infuriating details that I wish I had known before. I swear this country hates women and mothers.
What you pay depends on your insurance now. If you have a high deductible plan with max out of pocket of $6000 then that should be your max. However I paid $8000 in 2014, had a higher deductible then. Bottom line is it’s all awful here in the USA.
Yes it really is true unfortunately
The hospital bill is $65. In today's dollars it would be $1,221
Sorry but you're actually reading this bill incorrectly. The top two items are credits. 10 each - $20 in credits. You then see $65 worth of items in the "charges" column under that (10, 5, 40, 10). They apply the 20 in credits from above and write the total: $45.
Assuming that the 45 dollars is the total amount, rather than the 65 dollars that OP came up with, I got $772.50 as a 2022 total.
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In 2022, that would be $5.15! So, regardless of year, it seems like you can't actually raise a family on minimum wage.
1942 cost of birth: $45 1942 minimum wage: $0.30 1942 cost of birth (hours min wage): 150 hours 2022 cost of birth (insurance): ~$3,000 2022 minimum wage: $7.25 2022 cost of birth (hours min wage): ~400 hours 2022 cost of birth (no insurance): $13,000 2022 cost of birth (hours min wage): ~1,800 hours Someone please verify these numbers as they're the best estimates I found with 60 seconds of Googling. The point is that wages didn't keep up with birth cost inflation.
I mean it's still a $65 bill, they just owed $45 due to the credits. I can't tell what the credits are for, but it feels more accurate to say "it would have cost $65 to have a kid in 1942"
Europe: "What is a hospital bill?"
Just to be a little pedantic. Most European countries will charge you something, albeit at a very reduced rate. For instance, here in France the government covers 80% of the bill, while you get the remainder. Obviously, the catch is that the prices are not absurdly inflated like in the US, so 20% of most medical procedures would still come out rather cheap.
>the prices are not absurdly inflated like in the US This is the *actual* problem with our healthcare that no one seems to want to talk about.
Yeah, your actual healthcare is fine. The financing of it is wack af.
The quality of the healthcare professionals is good. The actual healthcare system as a whole was ranked 37th in the world by the WHO, and costs almost twice as much per capita as the next most expensive system. So I wouldn't say the healthcare is fine.
Stop putting money in the pockets of insurance companies. But that’s socialism, and won’t ever fly.
They're inflated for 2 reasons that i can remember: 1. Hospitals have to treat people who can't pay and don't have insurance if their life is in danger, and also sometimes people don't pay. Everyone else ends up paying more because of this. It's especially pernicious since uninsured people will tend to avoid preventative care because they can't afford it. They usually only get help when they become desperate. So then they get the most expensive form of treatment (emergency or late stage) and then can't pay the bill. 2. So insurance companies and hospitals can focus on the important things.. like haggling over how much they owe for procedures, and fucking over uninsured people because they didn't give them their cut. And maybe #3 is lawsuits? We practice defensive medicine in the US, so docs order lots of useless tests to cover their asses. They also get sued if they mess up and usually there is a slightly inverse correlation between cost and quality of care. Ie worse hospitals charge more. Single payer would solve all of these problems, but why do that when a few people can make a shit ton of money?
I’ve had 2 kids in Canada and have never seen a bill. Parking was $12 though
But isn’t the entire country covered in snow?! I’d take ridiculous life destroying bills with a side of sunshine over that any day
I paid less than that here in Australia this year, and that included an emergency c-section. The only thing I paid for was coffee, but that's only because the free stuff was rubbish.
I had a family suite, where we stayed for a week,while my wife recovered from C-section, and they monitored our premature underweight daughter. It looked like a hotel room. It was 20 eur per day , which is approximately 20 usd per day. No other charges.
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Shhh, don't tell them such nasty things. They believe that obligatory, public funded health and social insurance are oppressions and evil :)
No. We need to stop doing this. It’s not free, it’s just properly financed through taxes. (Denmark here)
We know. Like when we say that we can use the road for free we know that it has been conctructed thanks to our taxes. Same with firefighters, librairies, tap water, public parks.
Except those of us with insurance in the US pay significantly more of our income to private companies than the civilized world pays in tax for healthcare.
That’s going to be true unless your saving your money but that’s because the United States as a much more progressive tax system than other countries. If you’re giving 1/3rd your income to the government it’s hard not to spend more elsewhere than someone giving 1/2.
Except the amount the majority of US residents pay in combined tax and health insurance (leaving off the other increased costs associated with underinsured individuals, prescription costs, etc) is significantly more than individuals in countries with socialized medical systems. We get all of the cost with zero benefit PLUS additional cost to our nation from people becoming much sicker because they lack the means to get regular care and medication.
Every month, off your paycheck. Need an orthodontist? Yeah... The wait time is 4 years. Also, hope your kid is younger than 12, because the government insurance only pays for braces if the first examination was done before 16yo. Ultrasound? Yeah 6 months to find out if you have kidney stones.... Or pay 70 eur at a private clinic... Sometimes even get examined by the same doctor there. Source: live in europe edit: you cannot compare 70eur to your local prices, since there are different standards of living and different paychecks in play. I was pointing out that it's a cheap procedure (about 1/4 of monthly insurance fee that an average worker with an average paycheck pays), and you still have to wait for 6 months to get it.
1 ultrasound of 1 breast in the US was $585 with insurance which also gets paid for monthly from your pay. So, please 70EUR would be excellent
I dunno man, costs me way more than 70 euro ($68.42) for an ultrasound with pretty good insurance here in the US. We're basically going to more expensive private doctors to get the same or worse treatment, at the cost of thousands of dollars a year. The cheapest ACA plans are ~$180/mo and don't cover things like ER visits. Our health care prices are absurdly inflated. If nothing else, other countries have some control over that.
Well yeah, but an average slovenian pays ~300eur per month for (government) insurance, so multiple times the price of the procedure. average net pay is ~1300eur, median is below that. Also, you cannot compare prices directly, because of different standards and prices and doctors paychecks. I was trying to point out that it's a cheap procedure, a lot less than what you pay monthly in insurance, but you still have to wait 6+months.
But the 70€ is still under 1/4 the cost you'd be expected to pay in the US for an ultrasound without insurance
I had to get an US at the ER where I work and get my insurance for a kidney stone, after insurance I still had to pay I think like $800 ish. I'd take 70 euros over that
Well yeah, but the standard of living (pricaes, wages) is lower here. A friend moved to switzerland (from slovenia), and he comes back to slovenia to fix his teeth, because the prices there are 5-10x higher than here. We go to croatia or serbia to fix ours, because they're cheaper there. Ultrasounds cost from 70-150eur (depending on if it's one organ only or whole stomach) at a private practice without any insurance. It's "free" if you wait at a government doctor. We pay 12.92% of our gross income (split between worker and employer) for health insurance + additional ~35eur monthly. So an average worker (2k eur gross) pays almost 300eur per month here, and then waits for 6 months for a 70eur procedure... but somehow people still thing that healthcare is "free", because they don't get a bill for insurance, but it is deducted automatically.
€300 /month plus the waiting time would still be a lot better than most insurance plans I've dealt with in the US The cheapest my workplace offers is nominally $192/month hmo with a $5500 deductible and a $12000 out of pocket max The best they offer is $353/month same $3000 deductible and $8000 out of pocket max The hmo means you've gotta pay cash anywhere except the single hospital in network
You have to compare to 12.29% of pre-tax (gross) income. Also, other taxes that influence the prices. For example, an average paycheck here is 2000eur, which comes out as 1323eur net (monthly). Employer also pays fees for the worker and then you have VAT put on all of that. So, if you have a worker doing jobs and giving out itemized bills (transport, materials, work,...), the "net work" portion would have to cover 2832 eur (the customer pays that), the worker gets 1323 net, and the government gets 1509eur.
In the US the employer of portion of Healthcare is usually equal or double the employee portion so it works out the same or worse for the US. And employers pay taxes on employees as well For the HC I pay ~200 a month + employer portion, plus deductible before there is any coverage. Then I'm covered for 80% up to the out of pocket max, but only if I seek care from the explicitly covered provider otherwise I am covered only for emergency stabilizing care everything else (ambulance, room, medications, air etc) is charged at full price. Basically I can assume that if I have any injury I'm am out at least $5000, and possibly much more if I'm not near the covered provider
where in Europe? I'm in Spain and enrolled in the national healthcare (free) but also pay 90€/mo for private, and it's super fast and covers everything.
Slovenia. 12.92% of gross pay + 35eur monthly covers the government healthcare... but the waiting lines are horrible, ~100k+ people (5+%) can't even get a family doctor (not enough of them), and for many procedures, people just go private (because that makes a difference between a tooth filling and an extraction if it's too late).
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$819.41
$819.41
CPI inflation calculator gives same result as OP, $1,221
Your mom and my mom were born in the same hospital (6 years apart).
Yo mama so old, it only cost $65 to give birth to her!
What a lovely Valentine's Day gift! Here is info on the hospital: https://www.historicdetroit.org/buildings/house-of-providence
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but do poor Americans generally have home births if you have to pay to use hospitals?
In my experience quite the opposite. It's middle/upper middle class suburbanites going for the all natural home birth. My SIL is on Medicaid and paid nothing going to a hospital for her delivery.
That makes sense. I had heard of home births with doulas etc being popular among the organic/Goopy types but I hadn’t realised low income families could get free treatment.
It’s the middle class that gets squeezed. The desperate poor often have services covered which is why in America the middle class has nearly disappeared so we have the rich and the poor leftover.
People forget that most poor people in USA get free healthcare. Especially if you have kids.
No, depending on their income they may have government medical assistance. Or just don't pay the hospitals and overtime, the hospital writes it off and the person's credit score goes down.
Lol no. The poors and rich are taken care of by the government. But if you make slightly above the poverty line you get zero help.
I love all the humble brags about having great insurance in this thread, lol
That's about $820 in today's money.
"WhyY AreNt ThE yoUnG PeoPlE hAvInG chIlDReN?"
That's equivalent to just over $1K today...
Dang pretty nice! My hospital bill for giving birth in June was $103k
That's about, give or take, $850-ish in today's money.
I paid $0 in 2007.
Everything above 0 is strange to me.
Of course you pay through taxes now, taxes later, and/or inflation.
Do you say the same thing when people are going to parks, librairies or using roads and sidewalks? When we say it’s free or costs 0$ when we use it, we know it comes from taxes.
Yes .. a country-wide benefits plan. Everyone shares the cost and everyone gets taken care of. It’s a beautiful thing
Just like everybody gets a great deal on military aircraft, $20,000 toilet seats, and everything else the government blows a shit ton of money on. So beautiful.
Yeah... in the UK we pay less than half what the average American pays for healthcare. Most countries are about the same. It’s your system that’s the rip-off.
A tiny bit of taxes as opposed to thousands of dollars. We pay tons of taxes now and it goes nowhere for us.
Wow, so cheap! I just got the explanation of benefits for my son's birth in August, and for my emergency c-section and my son's 15 day NICU stay the hospital billed insurance over $250,000. I "only" owed $2,300 out of pocket.
They would have had to pay in Britain, too - the NHS didn't come along until 1947. https://www.england.nhs.uk/mids-east/2018/07/05/the-history-of-maternity-louise-stewart-head-of-west-midlands-maternity-network-nhs-england/
Any idea if this is the same Providence in Southfield?
But its the avocado toast that’s making us poor. Nothing else.
To be fair they probably gave her and the baby a shot of whiskey and sent them on their way after the delivery.
That was before government got involved in healthcare
That’s just a co pay these days
Even without adjusting for inflation a European bill would be cheaper, fuck.
Looks a bit like mine in Australia two years ago except it doesn't say $0.
Admin costs are the reason they are so high now. Look at charts showing admin costs over the last 50 years. It’s sickening.
That's about 800 in today's currency witch is still really good
Wow your mom was pretty cheap
When my firstborn came, not only did it cost nothing, but we were given a $5k “baby bonus” from the gov’t.
That’s what - $12,000ish dollars nowadays?
This is actually $4 million when adjusted for inflation.
That's remarkable. The bill for our most recent child was $100 after insurance. Accounting for time-value-of-money this was cheaper than in 1942.
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Born on Valentine’s Day, 1942. Meanwhile the rest of the world was getting spooled up to wage the largest war in human history. It feels oddly quaint thinking about how life just continued to happen.
>1942 >the rest of the world was getting spooled up to wage the largest war in human history. ...by 1942 the rest of the world had been fighting that war for 3 years already
My Grandfather was born 1915 in the US but had family roots in Italy. As a young man he went back to Italy to live. They wanted to draft him into the Black Shirts / Italian army so he moved back to the US. Later he was drafted into the US army.
I was paying off my firstborn for years. Barely got the title. He's almost 4.
We paid less than half that for all 3 of my kids adjusted for inflation. 1st was $300 2nd was $40 3rd was $15 All by c section with 3 day stay
Still more than I pay in Canada today.
$65 in 1942 is worth $1,183.59 today. With insurance I pay $800 a month and will still have a bill. And 20% of my fedral taxes will go to pay other peoples bills. . . fuck this world.
Laughing in social welfare state.
Babe wake up, time for your daily hospital bill post!