My grandfather paid for my birth back in the 1980s. I saw the bill, it was $350.
Insurance paid $19,000 for my first birth, fifteen years ago and $31,000 eleven years ago.
UndoxxableOhioan on
People love to post this, and it is too expensive today, but people also have to consider the level of care available today. In the 50s you got, what, a chain smoking doctor and a nurse. If anything went wrong, good chance mom or baby (or both) died.
Now, you probably have a a team of nurses and neonatal specialists on call.
remotecar on
Sure you save money on the childbirth, but maternal mortality rates were brutal. The 1930s and 40s were part of a shift from home births to hospital births, which made significant improvements on US maternal mortality, but you were still 2-8 times more likely to die giving birth in a 1940s US hospital than a present-day one.
(Modern day US has the worst maternal mortality rate of any industrialized nation, so we’re paying high prices and getting mediocre results, but it’s still better than 1940)
63crabby on
And in 1860, it was basically free! Thanks, I’ll take modern medicine over the 1940s option.
6 Comments
That converts to about $1500 today.
In actual fact, in NY it costs upward of $20,000 to have a baby if you have no insurance. It gets down to around $2700 with insurance.
Guess how much it cost to have a baby in Ontario, Canada?
[In 1945, the average American worker’s earnings were approximately $1,150 per year, which included wages, salaries, and various forms of income such as rent and dividends](https://www.bing.com/fd/ls/GLinkPing.aspx?IG=1C87A2F6FC4849BFA1A469A8A5FEC661&&ID=SERP.5459,5026.1&SUIH=jchlrwdyYGBKcP8FNJoKCA&redir=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuY2Vuc3VzLmdvdi9saWJyYXJ5L3B1YmxpY2F0aW9ucy8xOTQ4L2RlbW8vcDYwLTAwMi5odG1s)
My grandfather paid for my birth back in the 1980s. I saw the bill, it was $350.
Insurance paid $19,000 for my first birth, fifteen years ago and $31,000 eleven years ago.
People love to post this, and it is too expensive today, but people also have to consider the level of care available today. In the 50s you got, what, a chain smoking doctor and a nurse. If anything went wrong, good chance mom or baby (or both) died.
Now, you probably have a a team of nurses and neonatal specialists on call.
Sure you save money on the childbirth, but maternal mortality rates were brutal. The 1930s and 40s were part of a shift from home births to hospital births, which made significant improvements on US maternal mortality, but you were still 2-8 times more likely to die giving birth in a 1940s US hospital than a present-day one.
(Modern day US has the worst maternal mortality rate of any industrialized nation, so we’re paying high prices and getting mediocre results, but it’s still better than 1940)
And in 1860, it was basically free! Thanks, I’ll take modern medicine over the 1940s option.