TSara & eKayak: Knocked Up!!! :^D

[enterprikayak]

So, in the interest of us brooding hens not talking about our fetii all over the place and making you guys retch about the mucus plugs and all, I started us a nice wee henhouse for talking about our new babes.

And I wonder, if in the name of social science, Tsara and I might compare the cost of the process as we go along? Just generally, y'know. Only if you want.

I would be so interested! And other non-North American moms! What's it like in Europe and elsewhere? Hideously expensive? Free? What?

Anyway, only if you want.

So excited for us! yay!

[Distracted]

The answer to the cost question in the US is: It all depends.

Some of us have this Big Brother type insurance we pay an arm and a leg for which shafts the doctors but takes care of virtually everything, so ER visits are 50 bucks and doctor visits are a 25 dollar copay and 150 dollar meds cost 50 bucks max. The insurance pays the docs about 70 percent of their billed fees (if they're lucky) and calls it even, and the docs put up with it because they signed a contract that says they have to, and the insurance company executives make 300,000 dollars a year. Then there are those that have only catastrophic insurance with a 2000 dollar deductible. They pay for almost everything unless somebody nearly dies, and then the benefits kick in. A third group has Medicaid, and they pay nothing usually because they're poor, but almost no doctor wants to take care of them because Medicaid pays even less than the HMO's... and then there are the uninsured, who get no prenatal care because they can't afford it and then show up in labor to the nearest ER, where they shaft the on-call OB for his services since the law says you can't transport an actively laboring woman to an indigent hospital, so the doc is forced to take care of them for free since they don't have the money to pay him. Lastly, the honest poor go to the indigent hospitals, where they generally get pretty good care but have to wait in crowds like herds of cattle to get it.

The US system just works GREAT, lemme tell ya.

[enterprikayak]

um, wow. Poor poor poor people. I can't imagine.


So far, I'm at (with no insurance, just a very low monthly "health care" fee levied by the government to all employed people (and which you don't have to pay at all if you can't)):

$0: First prenatal visit with my OB (including full 1/2 hour chatty workup, urinalysis etc)
$0: Visit to the lab (for like 7 vials of blood) (T'POPSY, you listenin'??)
$0: Ultrasound to determine due date
_______________________________________________________________
Not having to locate a map to the nearest indigent hospital while 6 centimetres dilated?
Priceless.

[enterprikayak]

I craftily waited until I'd gone through labor to demand the name I liked better

hmmmmMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmm.......

[blacknblue]

I had no insurance at all when my daughter was born. None. I paid the entire bill out of pocket. Took me a few years, lemme tell you. But every damn dime of it got paid in full.

Ouch. It still hurts to remember that...

[Distracted]

And if people were all as upstanding and honest as you are and paid their bills, hospitals wouldn't have to hike up their fees to compensate for all the people who don't pay them, and doctors wouldn't have to charge 75 dollars for an office visit to pay their overhead since insurance companies only pay them the "usual and customary" sixty percent of what they charge, and insurance executives wouldn't get filthy rich off the sweat of everyone's brows. Good for you.

[Escriba]

So far, I'm at (with no insurance, just a very low monthly "health care" fee levied by the government to all employed people (and which you don't have to pay at all if you can't)):

The same in Spain. The so called Social Security (National Health Service in UK.) It's free for everybody who lives here.

[...]and doctors wouldn't have to charge 75 dollars for an office visit to pay their overhead since insurance companies only pay them the "usual and customary" sixty percent of what they charge

Wait a moment, you have to pay when you visit a doctor?

[Alelou]

Bwa ha ha ha ha. Distracted has summarized it perfectly. Here's an education for the Americans among us. The rest of the developed world is miles ahead of us on this front.

[CX]

So far, I'm at (with no insurance, just a very low monthly "health care" fee levied by the government to all employed people (and which you don't have to pay at all if you can't)):

The same in Spain. The so called Social Security (National Health Service in UK.) It's free for everybody who lives here.

[...]and doctors wouldn't have to charge 75 dollars for an office visit to pay their overhead since insurance companies only pay them the "usual and customary" sixty percent of what they charge

Wait a moment, you have to pay when you visit a doctor?

Your taxes are higher - you're still paying for it, they just gouge it from your paycheck before you can even get your hands on it. "Free" medical care is an illusion.

[Escriba]

Your taxes are higher - you're still paying for it, they just gouge it from your paycheck before you can even get your hands on it. "Free" medical care is an illusion.

Except if you're an English (to say a country) tourist that accidentally has to be operated and you casually are in Spain and, of course, the doctors here operates you and then, it's free for you .

It's just the idea of paying the doctor which surprises me. I mean, do you pay him with a check, in cash, or you receive a bill days later?

[CoffeeCat]

Haha - I just noticed Escriba's avatar. LOL

[Alelou]

Your taxes are higher - you're still paying for it, they just gouge it from your paycheck before you can even get your hands on it. "Free" medical care is an illusion.

Except if you're an English (to say a country) tourist that accidentally has to be operated and you casually are in Spain and, of course, the doctors here operates you and then, it's free for you .

It's just the idea of paying the doctor which surprises me. I mean, do you pay him with a check, in cash, or you receive a bill days later?

All of the above. Well, not so much the cash.

It's not free anywhere, that is true. But there's a big difference between places where everybody is covered and what we have, and the actual costs are actually lower in the former. We pay more and get less.

[Asso]

So far, I'm at (with no insurance, just a very low monthly "health care" fee levied by the government to all employed people (and which you don't have to pay at all if you can't)):

The same in Spain. The so called Social Security (National Health Service in UK.) It's free for everybody who lives here.

[...]and doctors wouldn't have to charge 75 dollars for an office visit to pay their overhead since insurance companies only pay them the "usual and customary" sixty percent of what they charge

Wait a moment, you have to pay when you visit a doctor?

Your taxes are higher - you're still paying for it, they just gouge it from your paycheck before you can even get your hands on it. "Free" medical care is an illusion.

"Free" medical care is an illusion.
It's not true, CX.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Haha - I just noticed Escriba's avatar. LOL

Well, I can't! And I can't see the avatar Alelou is supposedly wearing either!

Yes, I have pressed Ctrl + F5.

*****

As for "free" medical care. Every Swede has to pay roughly 10 per cent of the salary in taxes to the regional organizations (we call them landsting) that runs the hospitals and medical centres. And that's not counting the taxes that come from government contributions to the health care system, or the municipal taxes (about 20-25 per cent) that pay for other heath care things (children, the elderly etc.)

Since it's all socialized the queues and waiting-lists are exceedingly long and very few alternatives exist. Unless you're very rich and can skip ahead.

[enterprikayak]

Yeah, my taxes aren't as bad as Blackn'Blue's years-long bill, so though I do pay for it, EVERYone pays a little all the time, and that way it's a free visit for a sore throat and it's a free visit for cancer. Like a few months back, I had a (free) pap for cancerous cervical changes, and then went to the hospital for a (free) colposcopy exam and biopsy and then went to the hospital again a couple weeks later for a (free) "loop excision" kind of "shave off the cancer" procedure. Free followup at the doc's later, too.

I filled out zero forms and paid zero dollars. Just showed up and said my name and that was all.

Of course, the waittimes are terrible if you aren't really ill, like I have a non-critical visit to a rheumatologist coming up, and it's scheduled for (ahem) AUGUST!

But if you ARE ill (like I was potentially with the cervical changes above), they move you up the queue pretty quick. S'why you have to wait 4ever if you're not actually sick...all the sickies get budged in front of you.

But I would have paid through the freaking cervix for those procedures a few months ago, so I'm glad they were covered by my low, low monthly fee.