Giving birth costs a lot. Hospitals won't tell you how much.

What people said

elicash · 2017-06 · Recommendation

Here's a great video that I think is related to this topic about the near-impossibility of finding out the cost of giving birth: [VIDEO] I'd imagine the reasons for the complexity are the same as an injury. Edit: Just a thought... What if enough consumers went line-by-line AFTER the fact and shared what the specific breakdown of every item cost? So then you'd be able to say, okay, at this hospital them giving us an Advil cost $X and them doing this procedure cost $Y. Some way of making the master price list for how much individual items cost public and grouping together ones that generally appear together...

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AlotOfReading · 2022-05 · Reference

You can try to comparison shop all you want, but no hospital will give you details in the chargemaster if they aren't legally obligated to. Even if you are in a position to shop around, journalists have documented their futile attempts to do price estimation for routine procedures. Here's one example: [VIDEO] There have been recent laws that requiring publishing some of that information (which are being heavily contested), but comparison shopping remains effectively impossible in the US.

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elliekelly · 2021-01 · Reference

Reminds me of the Vox reporter who tried to get a hospital quote for how much it would cost his wife to have a baby: [VIDEO] I’m sure you can guess the outcome.

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