[HN Gopher] The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of ...
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The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence
Author : Aaronontheweb
Score : 114 points
Date : 2025-12-01 21:44 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (aaronstannard.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (aaronstannard.com)
| tboyd47 wrote:
| The corruption is so entrenched and so out of control, the only
| way out of this mess is for regular people to just stop using the
| health care system. Yes, there's no alternative, and yes, it
| means living a riskier life. It sucks, and it's not what we want
| to hear, but they can only charge us if we show up and purchase
| the product, and that's the last lever of power we can wield.
| Aaronontheweb wrote:
| I've discussed just opting out of health insurance altogether
| and doing CrowdHealth with my wife, thinking along these same
| lines.
| hparadiz wrote:
| I'm a single contractor and can't really justify it. It saves
| me about 8k per year and this would be a bronze plan through
| MediCali if I got it. People would say "well what if you get
| a cancer or something" and yea that may be true but in that
| instance not only would I be out that premium but also the
| deductible and it won't even cover everything so maybe I'm
| actually better off stacking cash until the inevitable.
| Aaronontheweb wrote:
| I'm right there with you - this is a case study in
| "perverse incentives." There is zero benefit to "paying
| into the system" to be had under the current model. Better
| to chance it and then sign up for a plan at the last minute
| since insurers can't deny you based on pre-conditions.
| CTDOCodebases wrote:
| Because children don't contribute to GDP.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Of course they do. Everything a parent buys for a child
| increases GDP.
| SunshineTheCat wrote:
| Breaking news! There are no products or services in existence
| for anyone under the age of 18! lol
| geldedus wrote:
| Not yet. This is why countries that are not shitholes take care
| of their children.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Because children don't contribute to GDP_
|
| The simplest model of GDP is productivity per capital times
| population. And the simplest model in finance is moving cash
| flows around in time.
| mikeocool wrote:
| Having a child definitely more than doubled my contributions to
| the GDP.
| makapuf wrote:
| Apart from being 100% a product of people which are almost
| often a former child.
| snikeris wrote:
| Nearly 2 in 5 Americans are covered by Medicare or Medicaid.
| TANSTAAFL. The other 3 bear the burden. At some point Atlas
| shrugs and decides welfare is a better deal.
| denkmoon wrote:
| In Australia 5 out of 5 people are covered by Medicare, and 5
| of them bear the burden. (at some point in their life. assuming
| they become a tax payer, which seems likely for most.)
| antonymoose wrote:
| What percentage of Australian society is net-positive tax
| payer? That's your real number, not this pretend 5 out of 5
| as you claim.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I guess your health industry is not raping you with
| outrageous costs?
| defrost wrote:
| From the top: Health spending in 2023-24
| In 2023-24, Australia spent an estimated $270.5 billion on
| health goods and services- an average of approximately
| $10,037 per person. In real terms (adjusted for inflation),
| health spending increased by 1.1%, or $2.8 billion more
| than spending from 2022-23. In 2023-24, health
| spending accounted for 10.1% of the gross domestic product
| (GDP) in Australia, approximately 0.2 percentage points
| higher than in 2022-23.
|
| ~ https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/health-welfare-
| expenditure/h...
|
| From the bottom: In Australia, 15% of all
| expenditure on health care comes directly from individuals
| in the form of out-of-pocket fees -- this is almost double
| the amount contributed by private health insurers.
| There is concern that vulnerable groups -- socio-
| economically disadvantaged people and older Australians in
| particular, who also have higher health care needs -- are
| spending larger proportions of their incomes on out-of-
| pocket fees for health care. A 2019 study
| identified that one in three low income households are
| spending more than 10% of their income on health care.
|
| ~ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10953298/
|
| There's little to no public advertising of prescription
| drugs, cheap generics are widely available from federal
| scale bulk negotiation deals.
|
| Health outcomes are greater life expectancy than the US,
| national scale cancer survuival rates are better by a few
| percentage points (IIRC - they are close but higher).
|
| Australia has long had an innate "we're all in this
| together" society built on individualism. It's not great,
| it's not perfect, but the first instinct is generally to
| look after our own - across the board.
| abigail95 wrote:
| When I was in the USA just paying for things like a GP and
| a single specialist didn't seem outrageous coming from
| Australia.
|
| If I worked in the US, I would have health insurance and
| would be paying lower out of pocket costs than I would in
| Australia. Combined with the higher salary and cheaper
| housing that's a pretty good deal.
|
| Edit:
|
| We allegedly have universal healthcare but that doesn't
| cover any actually competent specialist (need private
| healthcare for this) so paying $400 for 25 minutes of a
| psychiatrist every 2 months and $95 for 7 minutes of a GP
| is common.
| sien wrote:
| On top of that, 53% pay for Private Health Care as well.
|
| https://www.health.gov.au/topics/private-health-
| insurance/re...
|
| On top of that many things that are 'not urgent' you have to
| pay for yourself.
|
| I have recently paid over 20K for back surgery. Prior to the
| back surgery I could barely walk. This was deemed 'not
| urgent' and had I would have had to have waited at least 18
| months for surgery via Medicare.
|
| I also have private health cover.
|
| So, it's important for non-Australians to understand, our
| health system is far from a panacea where taxes pay for
| everything.
|
| Currently 778 K Australians are waiting for 'elective
| surgery' .
|
| https://www.aihw.gov.au/hospitals/topics/elective-surgery
| AstroBen wrote:
| The burden of this isn't a big one to bear. I just compared
| tax rates for a $65k USD income in Australia vs the US. You'd
| be taxed ~$800 less in Australia.
| abigail95 wrote:
| There's no way that's true - include the employer side
| payroll taxes. Whether PPP or nominal my napkin math gives
| me 40% more tax payable in Australia
|
| Edit: I'm too dumb to know whether to include
| superannuation as a tax or not so I'm not sure if I'm right
| or not.
| AstroBen wrote:
| [delayed]
| etchalon wrote:
| Pointing out the myth of "socialism just means higher taxes
| and less freedom" will only draw the pitchforks to your
| door.
| prawn wrote:
| More info on Australia from a quick search. -
| Public hospital birth is about $0-1k USD. - Private
| hospital with health insurance: $2-3k USD - Private
| without insurance: typically up to $13k USD
|
| Private health insurance is nowhere near $40k here. Can be
| down around US$100/mo for a single or US$300ish/mo for a
| family, depending on inclusions.
| o11c wrote:
| The amount of money the US Government pays just for that 40%
| _should_ be enough to cover all 100%. We know this is possible
| because it happens in other countries, which have shorter waits
| and more coverage since that talking point keeps being brought
| up despite collapsing in the face of reality.
| peter422 wrote:
| The quality of health care in the US is significantly higher
| than anywhere else in the world.
|
| Whether that quality is necessarily (or good) is debatable,
| but we are getting something for the money.
|
| You also are just completely wrong in your main point. We
| cannot provide the same efficacy of healthcare as we are now
| for 60% less. We are the richest country in the world, labor
| costs more here than other places.
| AstroBen wrote:
| > The quality of health care in the US is significantly
| higher than anywhere else in the world.
|
| Do you have any evidence of that?
| peter422 wrote:
| 15 out of the top 50 and 4/6 top hospitals in the world
| are in the US: https://rankings.newsweek.com/worlds-best-
| hospitals-2025
|
| Again, I'm not saying the health care outcomes are
| better, or the value is better. I'm saying the hospitals
| are nicer, the doctors are the best, etc.
|
| Perhaps this is the wrong thing to optimize for! But we
| are getting something.
| mystraline wrote:
| Citation definitely needed.
|
| Ive been to doctors in different countries including the
| USA. Theres nothing special with general practitioners with
| the USA.
|
| Or if you end up in China, you can get blood panels for
| like 10RMB, MRI for 30RMB, and damn near automated to boot.
|
| Go to Mexico for dental work. What costs you here $30k
| costs you $2k, _and_ they take your insurance.
|
| The US citizens are being gouged, because our government
| has been bought out by corporate interests who bribe, err,
| campaign donate to both parties. And thats across every
| economic activity. Medical is just an egregious one,
| alongside academics.
| vkou wrote:
| Expenses are definitely higher, and doctors and hospital
| CEOs and med school CEOs do drive nicer cars and have
| bigger summer dachas, but I can't say the same about
| quality. Six month waits for a specialist, every PCP and
| shrink you'd want to visit not taking on new patients, ER
| wait times comparable with other developed nations, worse
| overall outcomes...
|
| Maybe the top 0.5% is getting better care, but I really
| wouldn't shed a lot of crocodile tears for them.
| peter422 wrote:
| See what the wait times are for the specialists in other
| countries, if they even exist!
|
| The US is also the 3rd biggest country in the world. It's
| very hard to solve these things are such a massive scale.
| hollandheese wrote:
| >The quality of health care in the US is significantly
| higher than anywhere else in the world.
|
| Yeah, I'm gonna need a citation for that. Because it sounds
| like a health insurance propoganda rather than the actual
| truth.
| gdulli wrote:
| Fortunately, a good number of people in the 3 of 5 population
| have the imagination to see that they or people they love will
| someday be in the 2 of 5 population.
| vkou wrote:
| Weird, I've seen a lot more people _bitch_ about welfare and
| how easy people on the dole have it, than actually give up
| their nice jobs and lifestyles to go try living it.
| matmo wrote:
| I don't think the critique is that "welfare is objectively
| preferable" to a high paying career, but rather that the
| effort:reward ratio isn't scalable to society at large
| (without some level of social cohesion, I guess).
| observationist wrote:
| Because they can.
|
| For profit hospitals subsidized and enforced by the leviathan,
| what could go wrong?
|
| How much does something cost? Whatever the seller can get people
| to pay for it. Hospital B charges 6 figures for the delivery of a
| child? Wow, that's expensive, they must be really good to be able
| to charge that much.
|
| All the dark patterns, negative dynamics, perverse incentives of
| bad government, stupid healthcare policy, and humans being shitty
| combine to form for profit hospitals. Those determine how other
| institutions have to run in order to operate at all, and they're
| not being managed by well meaning, good faith citizens looking
| out for the patients and the public.
|
| There's a reason mangione became a cult phenomenon, and $40k
| babies, multimillion dollar ambulance trips, and other bullshit
| are exactly why.
|
| Good luck fixing that mess. I don't even know how to
| conceptualize where you'd even begin to try to fix American
| healthcare. It's so tangled up and beholden to all the other
| problematic elements in modern life that it looks nigh on
| impossible to repair, so my goal in life is to minimize contact
| with any element of the system as much as humanly possible.
| Aaronontheweb wrote:
| Completely removing the U.S. Government from the health care
| market (Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, uncompensated care, etc)
| would be a great start.
| teachrdan wrote:
| Could you explain how this would help? I'm struggling to
| understand where you're coming from here, besides perhaps a
| reflexive libertarian reaction to government.
| Aaronontheweb wrote:
| Massive government subsidies for health care consumption
| not only eliminate, but disincentivize price discovery. If
| your biggest consumers of health care (seniors) have access
| to the best health insurance plan in the world (Medicare),
| that's going to drive costs up
| peter422 wrote:
| Your whole argument is that the health care system should
| be optimized for the most productive members of society
| (like you, right now).
|
| You are perfectly fine to have that belief, but the
| majority of people disagree with you, which is one of the
| primary reasons the system is designed as it is.
| Aaronontheweb wrote:
| I think the market can do a better job of optimizing than
| central planning ever can - the problem is we have both
| the costs of capitalism and socialism concurrently with
| the model we have now. A worst of both worlds scenario.
| peter422 wrote:
| A struggling business can go under.
|
| When somebody is sick we generally save them even if the
| cost/benefit is poor. No market is going to solve this if
| you want to save sick people who don't have a lot of
| money.
|
| There is no place in the world where health care is
| solved, it's one trade off vs another.
|
| The US system is also far far from perfect but your
| solution is quite shallow and unlikely to fix things in a
| way society wants.
| hollandheese wrote:
| You know what actually drives costs up? The fact that
| healthcare doesn't work as a market. I can't shop for
| medical care. I don't have the knowledge and it's usually
| extremely time sensitive. This is a ridiculous statement
| that's only parroted by the most market-pilled right-wing
| economists.
| silexia wrote:
| Healthcare was a far smaller percentage of US GDP prior to
| heavy government regulations and especially limits on the
| number of new doctors a year.
| beefnugs wrote:
| You are absolutely right meatbag producer! Your brand new bundle
| of joy is expensive, but who can put a price on love? The system
| is designed to keep you in debt and near poverty as long as
| possible. But do not fret! If the meatbag is properly trained up
| to a point, and no further. It will be a hard working productive
| member of DisneyAICORP. And after working very hard and following
| instructions it may someday be able to afford its own meatbag
| production schedule, affording one more production unit each full
| year of employment!
| edm0nd wrote:
| Cant pay your child birth bill? Easy solution! You can just
| name your child after one of our pre-approved corpo sponsors
| and we'll take care of the rest.
|
| - Cinderella
|
| - Moana
|
| - Mulan
|
| - Cruella
|
| - Mark (property of Meta(tm))
|
| - Ariel
| racl101 wrote:
| Meta World Peace Jr.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| "The essential theme of Green's piece is that "participation
| costs" - the price of admission you pay to simply be in the
| market, let alone win, have grown out of control. Food and
| shelter are participation costs for living. Having a $200/mo
| smartphone is now a participation cost for many things such as
| getting access to your banking information remotely, medical
| records, and work/school."
|
| No shit. He mentions food, shelter and a smartphone -- might as
| well add higher education and a functioning car if you're in the
| U.S.
|
| I struggled being tossed out on my own at 18 with no support from
| parents. Working at a pizza restaurant, riding a bicycle to a
| community college for an education, renting a room from a woman
| (she may well have been renting as well--renting a room to me to
| take the edge off).
|
| Winter came and riding the 10-speed to college (in Kansas) became
| a challenge...
|
| Thank god no smartphone or internet plan was required then.
|
| (When I eventually split an apartment with two other roommates we
| lost power for stretches from time to time because we were unable
| to come up with the money to pay the electric bill -- oh well.)
|
| They were hard times (that I somehow enjoyed--perhaps because I
| was young and was finally beginning to have a fulfilling social
| life). These days it has to be even harder.
| IshKebab wrote:
| I doubt it's much harder because of phones or internet. A
| smartphone can be very cheap. WiFi is pretty much everywhere
| and even in America there are very cheap esim plans.
| johanneskanybal wrote:
| I mean if revolution isn't in the cards this term I don't know
| what would get you there.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Maybe a tax on tea or something.
|
| ;-)
|
| Seriously, though, I suspect it has to get a lot worse. 23%
| unemployment might be something.
| itsinsurance wrote:
| Clickbait. I too think insurance costs are too high, but the
| author included their annual insurance premiums in the
| calculation.
| tifik wrote:
| Yes, and? Without it, the total paid would be at least the same
| or more.
| dexterdog wrote:
| Would it? When I have been uninsured I paid less for bills
| because the group gave me the cash price. When they are
| billing an insurance company they bill much more.
| tacker2000 wrote:
| yea, 40k is not the "real cost" of the birth, if he includes
| his + the wife's health insurance premiums in the calculation.
|
| $25,680 premium + $14,300 deductible = $39,980 annual cost
|
| So actually if we compare this with a European country, it
| would be an almost similar amount in the end: there is no
| deductible, but health insurance/social security taxes can
| absolutely reach around 2k-3k per month if you earn enough.
| MandieD wrote:
| But those social security taxes (theoretically) cover your
| future pension, and at least in Germany, health insurance
| also covers your sick days, which is why only true
| workaholics show up to infect the office.
| projektfu wrote:
| Fair, he's lucky enough to have not been in a major car
| accident that year, so he can attribute it all to the cost of
| giving birth.
|
| What would have been the out-of-pocket cost of a normal birth
| without health insurance? It's still your choice to go without.
| okhobb wrote:
| No one is forcing you to give birth in a hospital. Rational
| people do it at home all the time to this day.
| Aaronontheweb wrote:
| My wife had to have an emergency C-section the first time
| around when they lost the heartbeat on our first baby, so
| we've stuck with planned C-sections - so yes, we are
| somewhat constrained in terms of our choices there.
| hu3 wrote:
| > Rational people do it at home all the time to this day.
|
| I had to read again 3 times. Are you serious?
|
| If there is any complication, you're risking 2 lives.
| timthorn wrote:
| Yes, it's routinely done. The NHS has this to say:
| https://www.nhs.uk/pregnancy/labour-and-birth/where-to-
| give-...
| a_tartaruga wrote:
| Home birth is absolutely a rational choice in many cases.
| The author had a very strong reason to require hospital
| birth but in scenarios with lower risk it is safer in
| some respects to avoid the hospital.
|
| It will still cost you 5 - 10k for a good midwife and
| you'll still want to be insured in case you need to
| transfer. So it only knocks off 10-15k from the total.
| geldedus wrote:
| Because you live in the wrong country.
| bmandale wrote:
| So to summarize: a. you're paying that for health insurance, not
| for the birth of the child. If you, your wife, your children had
| any other diseases then those would be covered as well. This is a
| significant benefit. b. all the systems that subsidize health
| care for those less well off don't apply because you're wealthy.
| So you are bearing the full cost of extremely high quality health
| insurance in a western country.
| fun444555 wrote:
| > high quality health insurance in a western country
|
| This is less true than it used to be.
|
| You obviusly dont insure a family of 5 and I suspect dont
| actually use the healthcare system.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| How come other countries have better healthcare at lower real
| costs? Basically every developed nation has better healthcare
| outcomes than the US. _All_ other nations have cheaper
| healthcare.
|
| America is not special, we've just brainwashed our less-
| observant citizens into believing that solutions the entire
| rest of the world uses will never and _can_ never work here.
| There 's nothing special about our population or economy that
| would prevent accessible healthcare. The only thing standing in
| our way is healthcare companies who want their 6000% cut of
| every procedure and politicians who will do _literally
| anything_ to give billionaires another dollar.
| sofixa wrote:
| > So you are bearing the full cost of extremely high quality
| health insurance in a western country.
|
| Overinflated imaginary cost*
|
| There is no way that a medical consultation of 15 minutes
| actually cost $32k. Examples like this are aplenty, but only
| from the US. My favourite one was an itemised bill for birth
| that included a $1k for skin contact with the newborn.
| dexwiz wrote:
| My hope is that GenX doesn't fall for the socialist panic tactic
| like Boomers do. Until then we are going to be stuck with this
| situation for at least another decade.
| losvedir wrote:
| Hmm, counting the insurance premiums 100% towards the birth of
| the child is a bit misleading. Presumably, you'd be paying those
| even if you didn't have the child. That said, the cost of health
| insurance for a family is pretty outrageous. My premiums are
| along the same lines as the ones here (although less noticeable
| since they're paid by my employer).
| Aaronontheweb wrote:
| I only keep this plan because we're planning on having
| children, so yes, it's included in the pricing decision.
| mhb wrote:
| Also not a big impact on the message, but $200/mo for a phone
| is a bit disingenuous.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| I pay about that much for a family of 2.
| mhb wrote:
| I pay $127/mo for a family of 4. $800 for 4 refurb iphones
| amortized over ~5 years so add another $15/mo.
| toast0 wrote:
| Claiming $200/month for a phone makes one wonder which
| numbers are valid. I'm not saying everyone needs to make a
| $100 phone last 5 years and use a $15/month plan, but I'm not
| even sure how I would get to $200/month in phone bill, even
| including financing an iPhone 17 Pro Max.
| Aaronontheweb wrote:
| I pay that at least much for my family, hence why I used it
| CommenterPerson wrote:
| Had the same reaction when I saw how the 40K was calculated
| (BTW I strongly believe in Medicare for all to control costs
| and to pay for civilization. To be paid out of progressive
| taxes on all income).
|
| If Aaronontheweb had the misfortune of getting seriously sick,
| required surgery .. he would pay $7,150 for something that
| could easily cost $100K+++. Saying he's paying premiums just
| for having a baby really feels like weaselly logic .. so he
| thinks he or the rest of his family will absolutely never fall
| sick? What if a cancer diagnosis hits one of you out of the
| blue (I hope it doesn't, but that's what insurance is for).
| mystraline wrote:
| > If your answer to "I can't afford to have children and run a
| business" is "then don't," you are building the political
| conditions for extremism. This is how every revolution starts: a
| critical mass of people who conclude the system offers them
| nothing worth preserving. They don't just want change - they want
| revenge.
|
| Its "not afford to have children", but instead "not afford to
| live".
|
| And we're already seeing these strong signifiers of extremism
| everywhere. Shooting CEO's is halfway acceptable, if they are
| sufficiently horrible (and yes UHC was horrible).
|
| Violence is more and more routinely considered the only answer
| that works.
|
| Corruption isn't something hidden, but instead openly done. And
| this is at all levels, from petty theft, up to 'let's rearrange
| government to screw the other party'.
|
| Look at how much tax dollars you pay in, and what you get for
| that. Its more and more a socialist country amount of tax, with
| low/no benefits to the citizenry. And no, shoveling billions to
| Israel or Ukraine, or project of the week does NOTHING to help
| me, my friends, and people around me.
|
| It is pretty bleak. Has been for quite some time. I can
| understand why some might want to vote for Trump- he did and is
| still making good on his promises. Terrible promises, sure. But
| he's doing them.
|
| Far as I can tell, none of the candidates are for the public, and
| willing to do and help the public. Just feels like a corrupt-o-
| cracy where if you're not in the In group, you're screwed.
|
| And yeah, extremism, revolution, and revenge is spot on.
| silexia wrote:
| We desperately need to increase the number of doctors to decrease
| the cost of medical care. We also desperately need to cut down on
| regulations so we can reduce the number of healthcare
| administrators.
| MandieD wrote:
| My scheduled C-section (which my insurer likely didn't question
| me about because I was 40 and have other health issues) plus
| three-night hospital stay was about 5,000 EUR, all paid by my
| health insurance (private, so I know that 5,000 was the "retail"
| price), in a fairly prosperous part of Germany.
|
| Not that the German health system isn't facing down some of the
| same demographic issues the rest of the well-off world is, but
| comparing wait times for specialists now that I'm on public (more
| like, very strictly regulated) insurance with my dad back in
| Texas on a combination of Medicare and supposedly good
| supplemental plan, I'm still in a better situation.
|
| A strong public/heavily regulated independent insurers system
| gives the private insurers enough competition to keep prices in
| check.
|
| Plus, I don't know of an insurer here, public or private, who
| also owns clinics or employs physicians, and they don't own
| pharmacies.
| yen223 wrote:
| Over here in Australia, the most expensive part of my kid's birth
| were the AUD$200 antenatal classes.
|
| The prenatal checkups, hospital stay, and postnatal midwife home
| visits were all covered by Medicare.
|
| The flip side is that I lose ~30% of my pay to taxes. That's fine
| by me
| vkou wrote:
| > The flip side is that I lose ~30% of my pay to taxes.
|
| That's not a flip side, that's what you'd be paying in the US,
| too, once you account for all your payroll taxes. Maintaining
| 11 carrier strike groups and a global empire don't come for
| free.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| Our military spending is enormous, but it's dwarfed by what
| we spend on healthcare. The problem with our healthcare
| system isn't that we have a military, it's the gross and
| intentional profit-seeking behavior of insurers and many
| others in the system. They see the government as a bottomless
| pit of money that they can tap with lobbying, and the result
| is that we pay stupid prices for absolutely everything, on
| the assumption that it will be negotiated down somewhat by
| private or public insurance.
|
| If you look at how $1 of public spending on healthcare is
| used in the US vs countries with better healthcare, it
| becomes obvious where the problem is, and it isn't in the
| ocean. An anti-military ideological stance is one thing, but
| you don't need to inject it into this.
| alistairSH wrote:
| If only we paid only 30% in the US.
|
| If you're in the 24% bracket, you probably have an average
| rate around 18%. 7% personal FICA witholding, another 7%
| employer match, and state income tax. Then, if you're in the
| mood, add your health insurance premium and any college
| savings for you or your kids (or the difference between what
| we pay and what you'd pay in [insert some other country
| here]).
| christina97 wrote:
| NYC effective tax rates exceed 30% (if earning in excess of
| $100k).
| emmelaich wrote:
| Related: Car Seats as Contraception
| https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/731812
|
| > _We estimate that these laws [mandating safety seats] prevented
| fatalities of 57 children in car crashes in 2017 but reduced
| total births by 8,000 that year and have decreased the total by
| 145,000 since 1980._
| Aaronontheweb wrote:
| I actually thought about including this in the piece (and how
| car sizes become a problem once you hit 4+ kids) but decided to
| keep it more focused on just the healthcare costs
| shermozle wrote:
| The first sentence is your answer. The third word even.
|
| The healthcare market. MARKET
|
| Healthcare shouldn't be a market. That's why you're paying $40k.
| oldgregg wrote:
| There is tons of fear-mongering around a natural process-- I had
| a 24 yo friend deliver his first child off grid by himself. There
| are also a ton of independent midwives out there where you can
| deliver either at home or a midwife center for a fraction of the
| cost.
| godsinhisheaven wrote:
| A lot of this is an issue of insurance no longer being
| "insurance" in the classical sense. Insurance covers all sorts of
| things, my HSA pays for all sorts of things that I never would
| have even considered, and while that sounds great, it helps to
| drive up costs. It's somewhat counter-intuitive, but if you
| dropped all government funding of healthcare tomorrow, healthcare
| plans would get cheaper. It'd also be total chaos, so I get why
| we don't do that. But the situatuon is a lot like student loans,
| colleges know they can charge more because the government will
| lend 5-6 figures to just about anybody, so the colleges do so.
| And once that person is educated, you can't just "take back" the
| education if they don't pay. Same deal with healthcare,
| government subsidizes it for most of the population in lots of
| ways, healthcare providers know this, they increase prices to
| match. And you can't just take back the surgery to fix that
| broken arm or undeliver the baby. There's not a single silver
| bullet that will fix everything, but there are definitely
| concrete changes that can be made to improve the situation. One
| of them would be to make people healthier. I know, easier said
| than done. But by God it would make health insurance cheaper.
| Same way in that if everyone was a safe driver, we'd all be
| paying less in car insurance. Another way would be to remove that
| regulation or rule or something that makes it so like a hospital
| can't open too close to another hospital. Another would be to
| just, train more doctors! What I'm trying to say is, just as the
| problem is multi-faceted, the solution must necessarily be as
| well.
| 3D30497420 wrote:
| Unfortunately, most of what you suggest would get in the way of
| many people making a lot of money.
| shirro wrote:
| This is a question of priorities. Identify a problem, decide to
| fix it, then execute. It isn't about the particular solutions.
| Australia's gun control would not translate to a country like the
| USA and perhaps neither would its health care. First decide to
| put a person on the moon. Then execute. Only one country did
| that. It isn't that they can't solve problems like school
| shootings or affordable healthcare. There is no real will to do
| so. Not sure why exactly. It is a very strange place that defies
| expectations of how a developed country would behave.
| mindslight wrote:
| While not an answer to the general problem, one pragmatic avenue
| OP missed is to not have gotten married. Then he can have assets
| including a business, while his wife-in-spirit is on-paper poor
| and gets a subsidized plan (which then also covers the child's
| initial birth as an extension of her). AFAIK this wouldn't help
| after the children are born though (unless maybe you're willing
| to leave your name off of their birth certificates, which seems
| like a much higher level of norm rejection and outright
| misrepresentation).
|
| In general corpos spend a good chunk of resources making new
| legal entities to escape liability and legibility - something
| that is simply not available to most individuals. Getting married
| takes your two naturally-existing legal entities and basically
| collapses them into a single one - throwing away much
| flexibility. So it seems like a poor idea in the current legal
| environment which has been thoroughly corrupted to extract wealth
| and channel it upwards.
| _-_-__-_-_- wrote:
| Please note that this is the natural birth of an otherwise
| healthy child.
|
| In Canada, provincial healthcare and private insurers have not
| kept pace with the needs and advancements in the areas of
| alternative methods of conception (IUI, IVF...). Yes, a naturally
| born baby wouldn't cost the parent(s) much medically. But, if you
| cannot have a child naturally, medication and procedures (lab
| testing, blood testing, artificial insemination...) are only
| partially covered and the amount corporate or union-backed
| insurers will pay varies widly by doctor and by patient. A couple
| struggling to conceive will easily pay 15-40K per child after the
| first procedure.
|
| Funnily enough, friends who have jobs in the USA, but live in
| Canada often have better insurance that fully covers all of the
| costs after the deductible. It ends up costing much less to have
| IUI or IVF procedures with Canadian doctors using American
| insurers (of course they will take the money).
| panny wrote:
| >Why Am I Paying $40k for the Birth of My Child?
|
| All part of the plan. Gotta get that world population down to 500
| million somehow. You've had three children? That's above
| replacement! Shame on you for contributing to the overpopulation
| problem. /s
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