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Comment on How do poor people in the states give birth without money?

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.

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zik@zorg.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Wow. That’s horrible. The US health system sounds like a dystopian nightmare.

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- TheDoctorDonna@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  And yet so many Canadians seem to want to dive head first in to a fully private healthcare system as if anyone could take that financial hit.
  
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  - orrk@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    meh Cannucks tend to adopt the worst of everything they see
    
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    TheDoctorDonna@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    You spelled Canucks wrong and your broad generalization is insulting to millions of people, especially since the majority of us are smarter than that.
    
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HunterBidensLapDog@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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.

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- FlyingSquid@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  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.
  
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- corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  I’m Canadian and I gladly pay more taxes than you so that I and my friends get free healthcare when we need it.
  
  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.
  
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dessimbelackis@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
What the actual fuck, and this was in 1990

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- randon31415@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  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.
  
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pg_sax_i_frage@lemmy.wtf ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

… “So, yeah. Don’t have a baby in America…”

for more on this subject see /c/childfree and childfree.cc. Includes talk, and memes, about some of the benefits, of not having children, including but not limited to finances. (also advice and directoriesabout related medical things, where thise Oare wanted or needed).

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