$418 in 1961 is about $4,438 in 2025.
I searched and the average cost for a vaginal birth in 2025 is about $13,000.
EDIT: I looked up The Long Island College Hospital and it seems like it was replaced by NYU Langone Long Island (also a teaching hospital). The bottom line is that you might be near $0 out of pocket there, as it was in 1961.
Wat? Are you saying that people who give birth in a hospital are sent a 13 000 USD bill afterwards? Like, is that actually what happens? I feel like I have to ask, because I actually cannot comprehend that being the case.
What if you don’t have the money? Do they expect you to just hold it in until you’ve saved up? Or do they just prefer that people give birth at home with no access to medical care if something goes wrong?
Are you saying that people who give birth in a hospital are sent a 13 000 USD bill afterwards?
Without insurance? Yes, it can be that or more.
What if you don’t have the money?
No hospital will refuse service in case of an emergency. I believe that it is actually illegal. They will send you a bill afterwards though.
What if something does go wrong and you call an ambulance, du they bill you for that afterwards as well?
Absolutely. For a lot of money in some cases. Do a search for ambulance service cost in the US and you will find a few horror stories.
What if you have no money for that either? Just… die?
Ambulances cannot refuse service in case of emergency, but they will invoice you later.
It is dystopian, but there arr plenty of programs to mitigate the issue. If you go to a charity or teaching hospital (like the one referenced in the post), and you have no insurance, your bill might be mostly forgiven if not entirely written off. Emergency rooms cannot refuse service and if you are broke, they might write it off. More than likely they will sell off the debt to a third party for a small fraction and those guys will hound you for life. Again, if you are poor, plan ahead (teaching or charity hospital) and you should be fine.
PS: I am sure you have heard of Planned Parenthood due to the GOP’s crusade against abortion. The real thing to note is that they offer pre and post natal services to make sure that mother and child are healthy, free of charge. Every time a Planned Parenthood clinic is forced to close, those services disappear for the poor.
And in the rare case where they do not forgive the debt and you do not pay, at some point they write it off for the tax break.
I’m sure they write it off at the original invoiced amount without any discounts so that their tax deduction for you not paying is probably equal to or greater than what they would have made had you paid it.
Even with insurance, many plans have a deductible that requires you to pay the first couple grand on your own before they’ll cover anything, and even once you’ve paid that amount they will require you to cover a couple hundred per day of hospital stay (doubled for two patients: mom + baby).
It is entirely normal to pay thousands of dollars for a normal uncomplicated hospital birth even with insurance.
Tangential, for ambulance cost only.
Once a year, I get a sort of info letter that lists every bill my healthcare has paid for me that year. So, I know what medical costs actually are in my country where healthcare prices aren’t being artifically inflated by healthcare being privatised.
I had a short ambulance ride in 2020. It was billed for about 90€. That’s what it would actually cost if they couldn’t charge whatever tf they want due to privatised healthcare.
If you don’t have the money you get debt. At some point in a hospital visit a person swings by to get your financial information. They can’t refuse care, but they can demand your info.
If you can’t pay your bill that’s totally ok, it’ll sit there waiting as debt collectors hound you every few days. Or you can reach out to a hospital run charity program to prove you’re sufficiently poor and get a reduced cost payment plan.
It’s dystopian, yes, but more in the “a lot of Americans go into medical bankruptcy” way than the “you’re forced to give birth out back” way.
At some point, the government is going to criminalize debt. They are already starting to, with student loans. Also remember that the 14th Amendment allows the government to literally treat prisoners like slaves, and force them to work.
So, prepare for debtors’ prisons, where you will be forced to work off your debt.
When my son was born in 1999, the bill showed two prices - one was the price for the insurance company, which was around $5000, and one was the price without insurance, which was about $20,000.
Luckily, we had the insurance, so it was covered, but I asked about it anyway. I was told that the hospital had negotiated a lower price with the insurance company, so I said that presumably they still make a profit from the insurance payout, so why can’t uninsured patients pay 4x more for the exact same service? They literally looked at me like I asked in a foreign language, and repeated that they had negotiated a lower price with the insurance company.
“I understand that,” I kept saying, “but why can’t you offer that price to your uninsured patients?”
“Because we negotiated a special price with the other insurance companies.”
“I understand that, but…”
Fucking predators.
They actually turn around and will slash the cost for the uninsured the second you dispute it. They don’t actually expect people to pay that much
It’s a weird dance with insurance companies, they say it’s costs 20k and then insurance says “ok, I’ll pay 7k” and you pay 5k
An uninsured person might get away with paying even less than $5k when it’s all said and done. It’s not a real healthcare system
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