I’m Canadian. And I’m already sorry for asking an ignorant question.
I know you have to pay for hospital visits in the states. I know lower economic status can come with lower access to birth control and sex education. But then, how do they afford to give birth? Do people ever avoid hospital visits because they don’t feel like they can’t afford it?
Do hospitals put people on a payment plan? Is it possible to give birth and not pay if you don’t have the means? How does it work in the states?
How does it all work?
Again. Canadian. And sorry.
I can answer this: my son was born in 1990. We were extremely poor.
We had midwives help us out as best they could, to the tune of about $3200 at the time. The birth got complicated due to a variety of health factors, and both my son and wife almost died (not because of the midwives). Luckily the midwives had a direct line to Georgetown Hospital, and the cesarean was done there. The total hospital bill was $58,000, or $138k in today’s money, although hospital costs have rose much higher vs inflation, so maybe it would be in the $200k range now. She was in the ICU for a week, hospital for another week, our son for about 3 weeks.
My wife job didn’t have health insurance, because it wasn’t required back then. Because she was gone a week, her job fired her for an unexcused absence. Oddly enough, this made her unemployed and Washington DC had some law (or rule or something) that immediately dropped the hospital bills because of her unemployment. In the end, we had to pay $15k to about two dozen practices who individually sued us, which took 7 years to pay off and a lot of court visits and wage garnishments. It financially ruined us, pretty much. Both suffered a lot afterwards because we just couldn’t afford minimal care. It was hellish. I can’t imagine how much worse it would be today. We got evicted from our apartment, and lived in government housing for six years.
So, yeah. Don’t have a baby in America unless you can guarantee it will be healthy and you have a lot of money. Most of my friends don’t have kids, they simply can’t afford it and look at it like the previous generation looked at concepts like summer homes and yachts. Nice luxuries, but way out of affordabilty.
I’m sorry you and your family had to go through that.
I’m Canadian and I gladly pay more taxes than you so that I and my friends get free healthcare when we need it.
When we watched the fights over “Obamacare” we just shook our heads.
That’s the ridiculous thing. Americans would rather pay a few dollars less in taxes than let people have free healthcare. And it ends up costing them far more than they would have paid in taxes.
Here’s the thing. I worked in America for the better part of a decade and I had to submit two tax forms, one to each country. You end up paying the greater of the two and using it to offset the other.
What I know is this: every year, every year, I paid an extra 1% to America. No matter how my (binational) tax guys worked it, my obligation to America was always higher.
The year after I came home I still had to submit taxes (January layoff scares so I moved back) and it was still higher for America despite sitting in a different country (it’s a factor) and using different services. It didn’t matter.
In Canada I pay 1% lower income tax and enjoy healthcare access. While they’ve done away with the regional premiums, I was even okay paying that; as my yearly outlay, proudly at the top bracket, was still less than copays while in America. I would gladly pay the same premium to ensure equal access to dental and optical care for me and especially people who can’t drop (now) c$1000 on some specs or way more on a dental crown.
It’s not that I’m a good guy, but I pay taxes for schools because I don’t want to live around dumb people. I do and will pay taxes so we can take people who aren’t healthy and skilled and contributing income tax and make them so they are. Poverty should be no excuse for not being employable.
Man… That is crazy. I’m so sorry for you guys.
What the actual fuck, and this was in 1990
1990 was around the time of Hillary-care and Romney-care, so the politicians knew that they were going to have to fix it sooner or later by that point.
Hillary’s plan was being developed and debated in '93-94, Romneycare in Massachusetts happened in 2006.
Why didn’t you have taxpayer paid (State) insurance if you were extremely poor and expecting? Is it because of the lost job and timing? If you are poor and have a family then you can spend a day at the welfare office and get public insurance.
Because we made too much (over minimum wage, dual income household). I was making $13k as a sales manager, my wife was making $8k as an assistant manager, and minimum wage was $3.35/hr or just under $7k/year back then. After taxes, we made about $1200/mo, and our rent was $650 for a single bedroom apartment. No car, we took the bus, barely had enough for food and utilities.
But we were considered way too over the “poverty line,” which was I think less than $6k/year then. We had been using birth control but when they say some form of birth control is 99% effective, the DO mean 1% failed. I have no regrets our son was born, because it turned out we couldn’t have kids later when we tried. And then later my wife died when he was 22, so if we had kids later, I would have been a widow with younger kids.
I feel awful he grew up poor with us until he was about 10, though.
Oof, yeah that’s rough. The poverty line is really low. I can relate about wishing you weren’t poor when your kid was a kid, we had the same experience. We would have been able to give him a lot more had he been born a decade later, but he still had a loving home, which is more than a lot of kids get.
I’m really sorry to hear about your wife. I can’t even imagine.