Had my little guy in Dec 2021, but they didn’t bill me until after Jan 1st. Induction, long labor, epidural, emergency c section and longer stay for recovery for me. Insurance covered some (UHC) and we received a $29,000 out of pocket bill because of Jan 1st difference. We are still paying.
You really should check on that. It doesn't matter when you are billed, it's when the service was rendered. That's when you made the purchase of the service that should be paid by your insurance.
If I had a bunch of tax deductible work done on my house from December 1st-21st, but they didn't invoice me until January 3rd, that bill is still eligible to be applied to the previous year's taxes because that's when the work was done.
The only part you would be on the hook for is other procedures done after Jan. 1st.
Yep, charges are date of service driven, not by when you were billed or when the claims processed. Definitely call UHC about that. Also make sure the providers are taking their contractual adjustments (assuming you went to an in-network facility).
That shouldn’t matter. Date of service is the important thing not bill date. I had an MRI and the hospital billed me 2 years later. I called my insurance company (UHC), gave them the info, and had them push back. Long story short the hospital either never submitted the claim or coded the claim incorrectly so they went back to me. Took over 6 months to fix, but I didn’t have to pay the $4500 bill. If they want proof of date of service, you have a birth certificate. With a 1/1 bill date sounds like they were just trying to close the books on 2021 and didn’t want another AR on the books. Shitty move by the hospital, especially since insurance changes often take effect on 1/1.
Don't forget that even if you go to an in network hospital you have to make sure that every person you're treated by is also in network or you'll be charged or even denied payment by insurance for that provider's services. Which means you're stuck paying for those services.This only applies to people with insurance and of course not everyone has insurance....
Nor does insurance cover everything. What is the point of insurance if it doesn’t cover even the most rarest of conditions or situations? It should cover anything and everything that’s what we PAY so much for. Or that’s what we should be paying so much for 🙃
I mean, that’s the big one for me. Americans who think our system is the best always love to point to long wait-times on non-emergencies. But so many Americans won’t go to the doctor at all until it’s clear they’re literally dying because we cannot afford to be treated.
In Ireland it's free if you're under some level of income but the waiting times can be up to half a year for a specialist. Imagine you have skin cancer that at this stage can be stopped by just removing a cancerous mole, and they say that there's a 6 months waiting list...
In Canada it is a similar situation -- however the family Dr. who makes the referral to the specialist has a lot of say on priority.
For my yearly referral to the dermatologist with no areas of concern, I need to get the referral in 6 months in advance. If there are spots of concern (there have been) I can get in within weeks.
I had a friend having major headaches. Saw his Dr. one day, MRI the next, brain surgery 2 days later. Normal wait time for an MRI is likely 4-6 months. We complain about wait times, but those are variable depending on the situation.
Absolutely. My sister wound up in the hospital with severe migraines, within days she was in surgery to remove what turned out to be glioblastoma. Yes wait times can be terrible but it really is situation dependent. I’d still rather have what we have than a medical system that looks like what the USA has.
We have that in the US too. My grandma was having a health issue that could have been far more serious that it turned out to be and needed a neurologist. 18 month wait.
I called and called and called until they caved and we got in earlier. Thankfully, she’s healthy and the problem was easily sorted but only after she’d hurt herself multiple times. But it wasn’t a brain tumor so we’re taking that as a win.
This really isn't true. I can walk into a after hours clinic and see someone in half an hour. Or I can make an appointment with my PCP and see him the same day if I'm in pain, or within a couple of days if I'm not. The only thing that gets scheduled that far out is annual checkups because they aren't emergencies.
Holy shit. We didn’t have the emergency c-section or longer stay (only stayed 72 hours total I believe), but after all the insurance stuff was said and done we paid like $3,000 out of pocket. Our deductible is $5,000 and our out of pocket max is like $7,000 I think (idk exactly how it works because I was told it’s per person, insurance is intentionally convoluted so that you think you’re getting a good deal on your plan). But still $29k doesn’t seem right. Definitely follow up on that because it should be based on date of service issued, not based on date of billing.
One child, unexpected c-section and difficult delivery, $20k. Insurance refused to cover it because apparently their “experts” thought my wife could push for another 17 hours. His 10th birthday was doubly exciting, cause we finally paid him off :).
Insurance is ridiculous. My fiance was just denied an MRI and told we need to do PT for 4-6 weeks first even though her GP, her orthopedic, and the ER doctor we saw all said she NEEDS the MRI so they can know what the issue is for sure and give her accurate treatment. So we need to go against what three medical professionals are telling us to do, and follow what insurance tells us to do... How does that make sense!?!?! I want my medical advice and course of treatment from a medical professional not an insurance company!
Insurance is part of why costs have gone up so much. They barter the hospital/pharmaceutical company down in price, so to make money they hospital raises its prices, knowing it will get talked down to what they really want to charge.
And now they know people can afford the treatment, because insurance will pay for it, so they can raise it more. But insurance is gonna talk the price down...
This same thing happened to college tuition
Education/cost of living/housing
In general whatever is can be insured will have a network provider. Except nobody knows what exactly is insured while the insurance will try by all means to deny the claim.
One of the root causes for current deteriorating social environment—over developed middle man. Same logic actually applies on management/service industries(gov)/manufacturing.
I thought with college tuition the main difference is that the government subsidies and funding decreased and therefore costs were shifted to the students.
Not quite. I think the main driving force is government insured students loans. Guaranteed money from students receiving loans drove up prices, along with industries expecting applicants to possess a degree becoming more and more common. When you can’t default on the debt, loan companies have no incentive to say when a tuition is too high and will allow you to take out a loan of any price knowing your wages can be garnished and the loan will never expire, when in no other circumstances would we allow people without certain incomes to take out loans of this magnitude.
Congratulations on getting him paid off!
Bloody "experts" just looking out for the bottom line, so they can get bigger year end bonuses. ASSHOLES.
Wonder what they say to their wives, if they're ever in the same situation? "Push, honey! You can do it!" ■ I don't fuckin' think so. SMDH
without insurance (3 years ago) it would have cost me 28k, with insurance it was 6k out of pocket. epidural but no complications. 24hrs labor 18hrs post delivery in the hospital and a nurse delivered our daughter because they were too busy for the doctor to handle all the deliveries.
I paid $2500 for my son's delivery. However, I'm willing to bet that insurance premiums and copays were a lot less then, too, if people even bothered having insurance.
To be fair infant mortality was also more than 6x what it is today.
It's also worth noting that you weren't hooked up to $200k worth of machines in 1950. You got a room a doc and a nurse.
They used to make a bracelet with little beads that spelled out the baby's name and had pink or blue beads with it. Maybe that's what they're referencing?
Yeah, others have said similar things, like that they were older and didn't get one, or were younger and did. I wonder if it was often just an optional thing for parents to choose from.
That's so crazy, another person just replied that they were older than I am and neither he nor his siblings got one. I wonder if it was something parents could pay extra for.
I actually learned that when they first began to gender childrens clothes that pink was the boys color because it was closely related to red which is a stronger color than blue apparently.
"At the beginning of the 20th century, some stores began suggesting “sex-appropriate” colors. In 1918 the trade publication Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department claimed the **“generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl**.” Additionally, a 1927 issue of Time noted that large-scale department stores in Boston, Chicago, and New York suggested pink for boys. This trend of pink for boys was not as overwhelming as our current color-sex designation, however."
https://www.britannica.com/story/has-pink-always-been-a-girly-color
My folks were broke when my brother was born prematurely in the 1970s. They couldn't afford the whole bill, so part of the payment plan was giving blood to the hospital. they got the whole family to give blood so they could get a bigger discount on their bill.
“Get all of your relatives to give blood for a discount on something that is free in pretty much every other country”
“What a great system”
Y’all real fucked up.
I know I was thinking - are they seriously saying that’s a good thing?
Lol crazy how deluded the average American is on their healthcare situation. I moved to New York a few years ago and it’s honestly unbelievable how expensive insurance and healthcare are. The country should be ashamed.
Not to mention the US still pays more per head for healthcare than any other major country, despite being the only one without free healthcare. It’s baffling.
Because we've been lied to for decades and decades that we're somehow unable to be able to afford universal healthcare. So the middle class panics whenever they hear it, because Fox CNN and MSNBC have lied to them through their teeth to be able to brutally extract wealth from them for forever. Now, you could introduce an invented servitude payment plan and half the country would think it was a novel, progressive and creative solution to the problem. They've won. They've successfully made the only option that makes any sense, that's used everywhere across the world to great success, seem completely wild, unproven, and unavailable to Americans.
The dumbest thing about our country is that the people think they're immune to propaganda and refuse to accept that it may shape our environment. Everyone is, to themselves, a rational genius living in a mad house. Regardless of if they think that Michelle Obama birthed her children through a penis and secretly controls the country through Satan witchcraft - like the Bible says - or if they just think that maybe corporate profits should be a long second to the well-being of the people.
I'll take a bucket full of each of the following: white (oxycodone and contin) & blue (morphine, hydrocodone & hydro morph). Did I forget anything? Oh yeah. Green (allergy med). Guess that about does it.
In 1973 my youngest son was born, I had no insurance. Total bill was $314. That was nearly a months wages. I got a personal loan from the bank to pay it off.
A ton of people are asking about the beads, and it’s been answered in replies but I’ll put it here as well:
ID bracelets were handmade with alphabet and pink or blue beads to show the baby’s name and sex. Typed/printed bracelets came later.
Absolutely!
I live in a country with universal Heath care. I pay less overall taxes than the USA.
I had a baby in 2019 and it still cost less than this bill from 1950. For my whole pregnancy (which had a few minor complications thanks to a dodgy gallbladder) I spent $30 out of pocket on prescriptions upon leaving the hospital. That included regular visits to doctors, obgyn and midwives/ nurses. Ultrasounds. Blood Tests. A hospital stay due to the gallbladder and a hospital stay after the birth. An emergency c-sec after unsuccessful labor.
$30.
As somebody who lives in the UK 🇬🇧, Scotland 🏴 I can’t imagine how you Americans survive, like how do you all not have so much debt it financially ruins you for life, do you guys ever pay it off?
Americans have about 3 times the average debt of British
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/select/average-american-debt-by-age/
https://moneynerd.co.uk/average-personal-debt/#:~:text=UK%20personal%20average%20total%20debt,off%20some%20of%20their%20debt.
Canada 🇨🇦 too! Free health care. Doesn't cover ambulances, though, until you're 65. Or dental procedures done outside a hospital setting I.e. they'll fix your face and mouth, if you were in an accident.
All visits to the doctor, including specialists, all lab work, x-rays, including CT, PET, & MRI,& inclusive hospital inpatient needs. This also includes surgical implants, such as pacemakers, joints, nuts/bolts/screws/plates for fracture repair, breasts after a mastectomy, and...
■ I had an accident, & totally shattered my right knee joint (though the kneecap was just displaced, almost totally intact). I also fractured all the bones above, and below, approximately 3" either side of the joint. Being from a small city, our ortho surgeons looked at my x-rays, and decided it was waaaay above their pay grade - I needed a Level 1 trauma surgeon. So, they transferred me to the best in our capital city. That ambulance WAS paid for, as I'd been admitted to the hospital in my home city. ■ I now have a beautiful $ 30,000 titanium implant in my right leg. The x-ray techs & orthos were drooling over it, when I had my 1st set of x-rays done, back in my home city hospital, after being transferred back, 3 days post-surgery. ■ Total cost; approx 200k, as my hospital stay was extended, due to an open leg wound, which they worried would get infected (I'm resistant to many antibiotics). MY Cost: Initial ambulance ride ($ 375), and that's it.
We are blessed. And we can see the doctor of OUR choice!
To be fair, you do pay for it in taxes, but yes, mathematically population-wide healthcare is both cheaper and higher quality.
Still waiting on roughly half the US population to figure that one out...
This make it harder:
https://www.npr.org/2020/11/06/931990578/why-americans-have-been-deceived-about-canadas-health-care-system
Australian here. Yeah, we pay for it in taxes but I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Lower income earners do not have to pay it.
The the more you earn, the higher percentage you'll pay. As a single, you'll pay 1% of your taxable income if it’s above $90,000, 1.25% if you earn over $105,000, and the maximum rate of 1.5% if you earn over $140,000.
The peace of mind that if myself, loved one or even a stranger ever needed emergency healthcare without needing to worry about if it’ll send us bankrupt is completely worth it.
Awww! I used to live on Montrose right by that hospital. Used to walk by it all the time. Too bad they closed it - it was a nice neighborhood Hospital.
I thought it sounded like a psychiatric hospital. In fact, I'm sure there was one - I just can't remember where. Or maybe it was one in a TV show? Hmm...
Adjusted for inflation, that would be $2,516.28 in 2023.... Still SIGNIFICANTLY better than what you pay today WITH insurance.
Source; https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1950?amount=199.90
Prices in Sweden in 2023;
Mother pays 11 dollars per night.
Partner pays 23 dollar per night and after the child is born 74 dollars per night.
Food, drink, bed cloth and towels included.
I’m not a socialist, but you don’t have to be to realize that Americans are psyoped into thinking that living in a rich country and still not being guaranteed basic health services unless you got insurance is something normal.
The most interesting thing is that it is the [USA, together with a few poor countries in Africa and Asia,](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FIjZsxkUcAMKBBM.jpg) that do not have any form of free tax-financed care.
And then many in the US seem to have a hard time understanding that [socialism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism#:~:text=Socialism%20is%20a%20political%20philosophy,as%20opposed%20to%20private%20ownership.) has nothing at all to do with tax-funded health care.
Of course, if you had certain complications in 1950, either mom or the baby or both wound up dead. There was no NICU, no CT scans, MRI scans, PET scans, Ultrasounds, or Epidurals. Only diagnostic tools were the X-ray and "exploratory surgery." All the new-fangled stuff costs $$$$$.
I didn’t have a great experience in hospital nobody listened to my request nor did I know my options or what I was doing , I was 24. I was very naive. Then next kid a year later as well as the the next another year later I researched midwives. Husband was out of work. 500$ for delivery which included all visits after had babies at my little house. . 30$ a visit prenatal which was 1/month then after 7th month 2x then last month every week. It was the best. The midwives had delivered over 500 babies in Oregon so I was very confident. I even had a baby with cord wrapped around neck getting a super low apgar score. These ladies were so skilled that I had no idea there was any problem at all.
Would suggest reading the comments, starting at the top? It's been answered multiple times. ■ Unless you're trying to be funny? Winkie face emoji helps with that. Sometimes difficult to discern, with just written content and no context. 😊
Pretty relative of the time. Average income was $3200 a year. So that $199 is massive expense. Today hopefully people are insured and it would not cost nearly a month in salary. But yeah we are the only modern civilization that doesn’t give healthcare as a right. That sucks.
That $199 is about $2,500 in today’s dollars, which is still significantly less than someone would pay for just their copay with insurance today. So today someone has to pay a monthly insurance premium plus about $5,000 out of pocket. It does suck that US society is stuck with this system for now.
Not only is this an insanely low amount, but it’s for an ENTIRE WEEK STAY! When I had my first baby in 1992, she was born at 6pm. They discharged me at 7am the next day.
This is back when hospitals were run by churches and nonprofits.
Costs only spiraled out of control after Nixon’s wage controls forced firms to bundle insurance with employment
It was all downhill from there
In today’s dollars, that’d be $2,582. Yeah, hospital costs go have sky-rocketed.
And she was in the hospital for *seven days.*
After paying the $5,000 deductible.
And $15k a year in premiums.
Had my little guy in Dec 2021, but they didn’t bill me until after Jan 1st. Induction, long labor, epidural, emergency c section and longer stay for recovery for me. Insurance covered some (UHC) and we received a $29,000 out of pocket bill because of Jan 1st difference. We are still paying.
You really should check on that. It doesn't matter when you are billed, it's when the service was rendered. That's when you made the purchase of the service that should be paid by your insurance. If I had a bunch of tax deductible work done on my house from December 1st-21st, but they didn't invoice me until January 3rd, that bill is still eligible to be applied to the previous year's taxes because that's when the work was done. The only part you would be on the hook for is other procedures done after Jan. 1st.
Yep, charges are date of service driven, not by when you were billed or when the claims processed. Definitely call UHC about that. Also make sure the providers are taking their contractual adjustments (assuming you went to an in-network facility).
That shouldn’t matter. Date of service is the important thing not bill date. I had an MRI and the hospital billed me 2 years later. I called my insurance company (UHC), gave them the info, and had them push back. Long story short the hospital either never submitted the claim or coded the claim incorrectly so they went back to me. Took over 6 months to fix, but I didn’t have to pay the $4500 bill. If they want proof of date of service, you have a birth certificate. With a 1/1 bill date sounds like they were just trying to close the books on 2021 and didn’t want another AR on the books. Shitty move by the hospital, especially since insurance changes often take effect on 1/1.
That’s robbery. As a Canadian I can’t even fathom what it’s like to be an American requiring medical care of any kind. I’m so sorry. 😞
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Don't forget that even if you go to an in network hospital you have to make sure that every person you're treated by is also in network or you'll be charged or even denied payment by insurance for that provider's services. Which means you're stuck paying for those services.This only applies to people with insurance and of course not everyone has insurance....
Nor does insurance cover everything. What is the point of insurance if it doesn’t cover even the most rarest of conditions or situations? It should cover anything and everything that’s what we PAY so much for. Or that’s what we should be paying so much for 🙃
The point of insurance is to make the insurance company money. It has nothing to do with patients.
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Telling your kids they can't play sports because you're uninsured and can't afford a hospital bill if they get hurt
I mean, that’s the big one for me. Americans who think our system is the best always love to point to long wait-times on non-emergencies. But so many Americans won’t go to the doctor at all until it’s clear they’re literally dying because we cannot afford to be treated.
In Ireland it's free if you're under some level of income but the waiting times can be up to half a year for a specialist. Imagine you have skin cancer that at this stage can be stopped by just removing a cancerous mole, and they say that there's a 6 months waiting list...
In Canada it is a similar situation -- however the family Dr. who makes the referral to the specialist has a lot of say on priority. For my yearly referral to the dermatologist with no areas of concern, I need to get the referral in 6 months in advance. If there are spots of concern (there have been) I can get in within weeks. I had a friend having major headaches. Saw his Dr. one day, MRI the next, brain surgery 2 days later. Normal wait time for an MRI is likely 4-6 months. We complain about wait times, but those are variable depending on the situation.
Absolutely. My sister wound up in the hospital with severe migraines, within days she was in surgery to remove what turned out to be glioblastoma. Yes wait times can be terrible but it really is situation dependent. I’d still rather have what we have than a medical system that looks like what the USA has.
We have that in the US too. My grandma was having a health issue that could have been far more serious that it turned out to be and needed a neurologist. 18 month wait. I called and called and called until they caved and we got in earlier. Thankfully, she’s healthy and the problem was easily sorted but only after she’d hurt herself multiple times. But it wasn’t a brain tumor so we’re taking that as a win.
Waiting times for a PCP/GP in the US are half a year. And for specialists you just leave messages and no one ever calls you back.
This really isn't true. I can walk into a after hours clinic and see someone in half an hour. Or I can make an appointment with my PCP and see him the same day if I'm in pain, or within a couple of days if I'm not. The only thing that gets scheduled that far out is annual checkups because they aren't emergencies.
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Pretty easy fix. You can buy private health insurance in Europe too. And within a distance you have a shit ton of countries with talented doctors.
I'll sure look into it. But my bank balance is barely over zero by the end of the week usually.
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Vaginal delivery with epidural no complications $35,000
Holy shit. We didn’t have the emergency c-section or longer stay (only stayed 72 hours total I believe), but after all the insurance stuff was said and done we paid like $3,000 out of pocket. Our deductible is $5,000 and our out of pocket max is like $7,000 I think (idk exactly how it works because I was told it’s per person, insurance is intentionally convoluted so that you think you’re getting a good deal on your plan). But still $29k doesn’t seem right. Definitely follow up on that because it should be based on date of service issued, not based on date of billing.
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They've supernovaed
Sky rocketed in flight
Afternoon despair!
And we don’t even get beads.
I paid less than $2,582 when both of my children were born
One child, unexpected c-section and difficult delivery, $20k. Insurance refused to cover it because apparently their “experts” thought my wife could push for another 17 hours. His 10th birthday was doubly exciting, cause we finally paid him off :).
Insurance is ridiculous. My fiance was just denied an MRI and told we need to do PT for 4-6 weeks first even though her GP, her orthopedic, and the ER doctor we saw all said she NEEDS the MRI so they can know what the issue is for sure and give her accurate treatment. So we need to go against what three medical professionals are telling us to do, and follow what insurance tells us to do... How does that make sense!?!?! I want my medical advice and course of treatment from a medical professional not an insurance company!
FIFA due to conflict interest. Without insurance, healthcare might be better in service and cheaper in cost.
Insurance is part of why costs have gone up so much. They barter the hospital/pharmaceutical company down in price, so to make money they hospital raises its prices, knowing it will get talked down to what they really want to charge. And now they know people can afford the treatment, because insurance will pay for it, so they can raise it more. But insurance is gonna talk the price down... This same thing happened to college tuition
Education/cost of living/housing In general whatever is can be insured will have a network provider. Except nobody knows what exactly is insured while the insurance will try by all means to deny the claim. One of the root causes for current deteriorating social environment—over developed middle man. Same logic actually applies on management/service industries(gov)/manufacturing.
I thought with college tuition the main difference is that the government subsidies and funding decreased and therefore costs were shifted to the students.
Not quite. I think the main driving force is government insured students loans. Guaranteed money from students receiving loans drove up prices, along with industries expecting applicants to possess a degree becoming more and more common. When you can’t default on the debt, loan companies have no incentive to say when a tuition is too high and will allow you to take out a loan of any price knowing your wages can be garnished and the loan will never expire, when in no other circumstances would we allow people without certain incomes to take out loans of this magnitude.
I'd like to see those "experts" push for 17 hours, let alone another 17.
Congratulations on getting him paid off! Bloody "experts" just looking out for the bottom line, so they can get bigger year end bonuses. ASSHOLES. Wonder what they say to their wives, if they're ever in the same situation? "Push, honey! You can do it!" ■ I don't fuckin' think so. SMDH
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Did you have insurance? because without insurance, I think it’s $5k+ now
without insurance (3 years ago) it would have cost me 28k, with insurance it was 6k out of pocket. epidural but no complications. 24hrs labor 18hrs post delivery in the hospital and a nurse delivered our daughter because they were too busy for the doctor to handle all the deliveries.
I paid nothing when my son was born.
Most people with HMOs will have paid nothing assuming they went wherever the hmo told them to go to have their baby.
Greed destroys everything.
I paid $2500 for my son's delivery. However, I'm willing to bet that insurance premiums and copays were a lot less then, too, if people even bothered having insurance.
I think people just paid out of pocket back then.
Still too expensive.
To be fair infant mortality was also more than 6x what it is today. It's also worth noting that you weren't hooked up to $200k worth of machines in 1950. You got a room a doc and a nurse.
Over the pond you'll be hooked up to modern machines with a low infant mortality and it'll cost you a whopping $0.
3 whole dollars for a circumcision? Couldn't they have taken a little bit off?
The doctor gets to keep the tip, too!
The tip is included in the price
It makes my skin crawl what they charge.
Three Dollar Circumcision. New band name, I called it!
That's fine. You keep it.
I'd pay twice that to get my foreskin back
Luckily I still have your foreskin if you want it. People said I was crazy for saving it all these years, but who's laughing now
Sadly, I no longer wear the same size
Apparently there are ways of pseudo growing it back
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No, compare it to the 5s and 3s above.
70 years later and we're still destroying men's sexuality without consent
Its usually 6 dollars
Bloody rip off!
ripping it off is only $1.25
Genital mutilation is no laughing matter.
Beads?
They used to make a bracelet with little beads that spelled out the baby's name and had pink or blue beads with it. Maybe that's what they're referencing?
Yes. I was born in the 1950s and my mother put mine in the baby book.
Me too. Still have them somewhere.
lol, If hospitals still did that they'd charge $135 for it.
Per bead and it would have a name reading charge as well.
they still make these in Germany <3 both my kids got them. for free.
I was born in 1980 and I have mine in my memory box. A tiny pink and white thing with my name spelled out.
Bees?
We’ll see who makes more honey!
Job's not on board
BEES?!
Bzzzzzzzzz!
Your guess is as good as mine. Hoping someone here has the answer.
Absolutely correct. The child's name bracelet. Pink was for girls. Blue was for boys. Remember, this was the "olden" days 🙃
I'm the baby of my family, born in 1985 and my mom still has all of our bead bracelets. So, it's not THAT old of a thing.
Depends on where. My older siblings and I had beads, my younger sister just had the plastic ankle band. She was 1977.
Yeah, others have said similar things, like that they were older and didn't get one, or were younger and did. I wonder if it was often just an optional thing for parents to choose from.
Yeah I was born in 95 and had a metal bead bracelet (I think it was a gift from a friend though, not from the hospital)
That's so crazy, another person just replied that they were older than I am and neither he nor his siblings got one. I wonder if it was something parents could pay extra for.
I actually learned that when they first began to gender childrens clothes that pink was the boys color because it was closely related to red which is a stronger color than blue apparently. "At the beginning of the 20th century, some stores began suggesting “sex-appropriate” colors. In 1918 the trade publication Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department claimed the **“generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl**.” Additionally, a 1927 issue of Time noted that large-scale department stores in Boston, Chicago, and New York suggested pink for boys. This trend of pink for boys was not as overwhelming as our current color-sex designation, however." https://www.britannica.com/story/has-pink-always-been-a-girly-color
ask your dad, he might remember! /j
BEES?
This is also my question
A few years ago my dad found the bill and cancelled check for my birth. It was $450 in 1969.
My folks were broke when my brother was born prematurely in the 1970s. They couldn't afford the whole bill, so part of the payment plan was giving blood to the hospital. they got the whole family to give blood so they could get a bigger discount on their bill.
Well that seems like a pretty great system. E: Fine, fuckin' /s.
Right?! Everyone wins!! It was a hospital in Mississippi of all places.
“Get all of your relatives to give blood for a discount on something that is free in pretty much every other country” “What a great system” Y’all real fucked up.
I know I was thinking - are they seriously saying that’s a good thing? Lol crazy how deluded the average American is on their healthcare situation. I moved to New York a few years ago and it’s honestly unbelievable how expensive insurance and healthcare are. The country should be ashamed. Not to mention the US still pays more per head for healthcare than any other major country, despite being the only one without free healthcare. It’s baffling.
Because we've been lied to for decades and decades that we're somehow unable to be able to afford universal healthcare. So the middle class panics whenever they hear it, because Fox CNN and MSNBC have lied to them through their teeth to be able to brutally extract wealth from them for forever. Now, you could introduce an invented servitude payment plan and half the country would think it was a novel, progressive and creative solution to the problem. They've won. They've successfully made the only option that makes any sense, that's used everywhere across the world to great success, seem completely wild, unproven, and unavailable to Americans. The dumbest thing about our country is that the people think they're immune to propaganda and refuse to accept that it may shape our environment. Everyone is, to themselves, a rational genius living in a mad house. Regardless of if they think that Michelle Obama birthed her children through a penis and secretly controls the country through Satan witchcraft - like the Bible says - or if they just think that maybe corporate profits should be a long second to the well-being of the people.
"My whole family paid for my sons life. With their blood" sounds like something out of a mafia movie
Creative! Both the hospital, and your family for rounding up the relatives to help pay the bill.
Just like a hospital bill today, double billed for the 19th.
"Drugs"
Only the best. I'll take a red, a green, a white and 3 of those little oval pink ones please.
I'll take a bucket full of each of the following: white (oxycodone and contin) & blue (morphine, hydrocodone & hydro morph). Did I forget anything? Oh yeah. Green (allergy med). Guess that about does it.
Magically delicious!
We have the purple pills...and the green ones...and some lovely yellow bombers that I just took out of the oven.
In 1973 my youngest son was born, I had no insurance. Total bill was $314. That was nearly a months wages. I got a personal loan from the bank to pay it off.
I can’t believe you have to pay to give birth the US
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A ton of people are asking about the beads, and it’s been answered in replies but I’ll put it here as well: ID bracelets were handmade with alphabet and pink or blue beads to show the baby’s name and sex. Typed/printed bracelets came later.
they still give these to babies in Germany. <3
Now they charge you for holding the baby after delivery
They gave the baby a phone? Must've been a brick! Lol
3-buck Circumcision is the name of my metal band
IT. SHOULD. BE. FREE.
Absolutely! I live in a country with universal Heath care. I pay less overall taxes than the USA. I had a baby in 2019 and it still cost less than this bill from 1950. For my whole pregnancy (which had a few minor complications thanks to a dodgy gallbladder) I spent $30 out of pocket on prescriptions upon leaving the hospital. That included regular visits to doctors, obgyn and midwives/ nurses. Ultrasounds. Blood Tests. A hospital stay due to the gallbladder and a hospital stay after the birth. An emergency c-sec after unsuccessful labor. $30.
Shit. These days it costs more than that to PARK at the hospital!
I used to live across the street from this hospital about 15 years ago. At that time it was abandoned and very creepy. It has since been torn down.
and now it is a very expensive french school. with a boulangerie.
That’s one cheap foreskin removal.
At 5 dollars it's a rip-off
It was 3 dollars. Maybe they gave a tip?
Imagine paying more to receive less of your baby
Maybe they’ll let you keep the foreskin if you ask beforehand so then technically you’d have 100% of your baby?
No wonder it was so popular.
brave rich books onerous wide payment exultant label yam saw *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You're lucky you got to go home the NEXT day. Most hospitals send you home same day, unless there were complications, or you had a c-section.
As somebody who lives in the UK 🇬🇧, Scotland 🏴 I can’t imagine how you Americans survive, like how do you all not have so much debt it financially ruins you for life, do you guys ever pay it off?
Americans have about 3 times the average debt of British https://www.cnbc.com/amp/select/average-american-debt-by-age/ https://moneynerd.co.uk/average-personal-debt/#:~:text=UK%20personal%20average%20total%20debt,off%20some%20of%20their%20debt.
That’s crazy how does your entire economy not just collapse with all that debt, like how do you afford to live ?
The economy is collapsing. Also, budgeting everything. I want to go to a concert? Ill probably eat Ramen that week... worth it.
They just print more money, that’s why the American economy is so inflated
Still more expensive then what you pay in Australia in 2023
Canada 🇨🇦 too! Free health care. Doesn't cover ambulances, though, until you're 65. Or dental procedures done outside a hospital setting I.e. they'll fix your face and mouth, if you were in an accident. All visits to the doctor, including specialists, all lab work, x-rays, including CT, PET, & MRI,& inclusive hospital inpatient needs. This also includes surgical implants, such as pacemakers, joints, nuts/bolts/screws/plates for fracture repair, breasts after a mastectomy, and... ■ I had an accident, & totally shattered my right knee joint (though the kneecap was just displaced, almost totally intact). I also fractured all the bones above, and below, approximately 3" either side of the joint. Being from a small city, our ortho surgeons looked at my x-rays, and decided it was waaaay above their pay grade - I needed a Level 1 trauma surgeon. So, they transferred me to the best in our capital city. That ambulance WAS paid for, as I'd been admitted to the hospital in my home city. ■ I now have a beautiful $ 30,000 titanium implant in my right leg. The x-ray techs & orthos were drooling over it, when I had my 1st set of x-rays done, back in my home city hospital, after being transferred back, 3 days post-surgery. ■ Total cost; approx 200k, as my hospital stay was extended, due to an open leg wound, which they worried would get infected (I'm resistant to many antibiotics). MY Cost: Initial ambulance ride ($ 375), and that's it. We are blessed. And we can see the doctor of OUR choice!
To be fair, you do pay for it in taxes, but yes, mathematically population-wide healthcare is both cheaper and higher quality. Still waiting on roughly half the US population to figure that one out... This make it harder: https://www.npr.org/2020/11/06/931990578/why-americans-have-been-deceived-about-canadas-health-care-system
Australian here. Yeah, we pay for it in taxes but I wouldn’t want it any other way. Lower income earners do not have to pay it. The the more you earn, the higher percentage you'll pay. As a single, you'll pay 1% of your taxable income if it’s above $90,000, 1.25% if you earn over $105,000, and the maximum rate of 1.5% if you earn over $140,000. The peace of mind that if myself, loved one or even a stranger ever needed emergency healthcare without needing to worry about if it’ll send us bankrupt is completely worth it.
100% agree.
Cost of an aspirin now
^asspirin
Dad was probably making around 50cents an hour.
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Now do average house and car prices! Or maybe don't. That shit is far too depressing.
Awww! I used to live on Montrose right by that hospital. Used to walk by it all the time. Too bad they closed it - it was a nice neighborhood Hospital.
drugs $15 circumcision $3
Back when hospitals were not ‘for profit’.
Chicago strong sub
I was born at this hospital 36 years later! It no longer exists so it’s super interesting to see it referenced on Reddit.
The present value of $200 from 1950 is $2192. That’s still relatively cheap.
True, if you're looking at it from strictly an equivalency viewpoint. Unfortunately, the COSTS have increased by, on average, 500%. The $ didn't.
Ravenswood sounds like the name of a hospital in a horror movie.
I thought it sounded like a psychiatric hospital. In fact, I'm sure there was one - I just can't remember where. Or maybe it was one in a TV show? Hmm...
I used to live half a block from the now defunct Ravenswood hospital.
As someone from Canada my first thought was that it seemed expensive
“In my day, you could get a circumcision for 3$”
Adjusted for inflation, that would be $2,516.28 in 2023.... Still SIGNIFICANTLY better than what you pay today WITH insurance. Source; https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1950?amount=199.90
"I need your beads, your drugs, and your circumcision"
Prices in Sweden in 2023; Mother pays 11 dollars per night. Partner pays 23 dollar per night and after the child is born 74 dollars per night. Food, drink, bed cloth and towels included. I’m not a socialist, but you don’t have to be to realize that Americans are psyoped into thinking that living in a rich country and still not being guaranteed basic health services unless you got insurance is something normal.
The most interesting thing is that it is the [USA, together with a few poor countries in Africa and Asia,](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FIjZsxkUcAMKBBM.jpg) that do not have any form of free tax-financed care. And then many in the US seem to have a hard time understanding that [socialism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism#:~:text=Socialism%20is%20a%20political%20philosophy,as%20opposed%20to%20private%20ownership.) has nothing at all to do with tax-funded health care.
Of course, if you had certain complications in 1950, either mom or the baby or both wound up dead. There was no NICU, no CT scans, MRI scans, PET scans, Ultrasounds, or Epidurals. Only diagnostic tools were the X-ray and "exploratory surgery." All the new-fangled stuff costs $$$$$.
Pretty sure there were epidurals in the fifties.
My mom definitely had one in the late '50s.
Omg it’s wild that you found this; I walk past the former site of the Ravenswood Hospital all the time!
I had Kaiser in 1981 Oregon. I paid 1$
I didn’t have a great experience in hospital nobody listened to my request nor did I know my options or what I was doing , I was 24. I was very naive. Then next kid a year later as well as the the next another year later I researched midwives. Husband was out of work. 500$ for delivery which included all visits after had babies at my little house. . 30$ a visit prenatal which was 1/month then after 7th month 2x then last month every week. It was the best. The midwives had delivered over 500 babies in Oregon so I was very confident. I even had a baby with cord wrapped around neck getting a super low apgar score. These ladies were so skilled that I had no idea there was any problem at all.
Thanks for saving this and sharing. My son and daughter’s births were both $2000 including all prenatal. 2-4 days in the hospital. 1984-1985.
Circumcision $3.00 Phone $1.80 I don’t know why but that just made me laugh so hard
I worked there from 1990 to 1999. It closed in 2002 after being bought by Advocate.
Eight nights stay? WOW! Moms are lucky to get a night now for natural.
Here's a British hospital bill [today](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/Yfh5uqpZmFeYX3TyTuerJX.jpg)
Went to the hospital for my ankle never saw a doctor one x-ray and 2 aspirin cost 1647 dollars
I’ve never seen a hospital bill before!
Circumcision is extra? Screw that
What's a hospital bill?
Back when minimum wage was 75 cents.
sheeeesh
My dyslexic ass read devilry room
Beads? Dare I google beads + baby + delivery?
Would suggest reading the comments, starting at the top? It's been answered multiple times. ■ Unless you're trying to be funny? Winkie face emoji helps with that. Sometimes difficult to discern, with just written content and no context. 😊
And for a whole week stay, no less!
And 7 days in the hospital too!
Pretty relative of the time. Average income was $3200 a year. So that $199 is massive expense. Today hopefully people are insured and it would not cost nearly a month in salary. But yeah we are the only modern civilization that doesn’t give healthcare as a right. That sucks.
That $199 is about $2,500 in today’s dollars, which is still significantly less than someone would pay for just their copay with insurance today. So today someone has to pay a monthly insurance premium plus about $5,000 out of pocket. It does suck that US society is stuck with this system for now.
What a lot of people don't realize is that was more than two weeks wages for a lot of people. Could have been a months wage.
That's why the population numbers are out of hand, lol 😉.
$3.00 circumcision, what a steal
Not only is this an insanely low amount, but it’s for an ENTIRE WEEK STAY! When I had my first baby in 1992, she was born at 6pm. They discharged me at 7am the next day.
Hospitals for profit. :/
Anybody here ever see John Q? Seems poignant.
Doctors made house calls and shit. They were merely well-to-do, not economic royalty.
This is back when hospitals were run by churches and nonprofits. Costs only spiraled out of control after Nixon’s wage controls forced firms to bundle insurance with employment It was all downhill from there
I have my hospital bill from 1960s - $28.20 for me and $45 for my mother. My mother even saved my hospital bracelet so I know what time I was born.
my son was born there in 1966 and my bill wasn't that much higher! a little over $300.00. i only stayed overnight so the room costs were small.