In some low brow "chat war" context, I came across the postulation that "It costs 40,000 to have a baby in the US". Even my trusty duckduckgo failed me when I searched "cost of birth US", as out came some figures that are apparently undisputed across the whole internet. The Guardian has 2 extremely distal estimations of the cost of giving birth next to each other in their article, with a broken link. [Archived](https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/16/why-does-it-cost-32093-just-to-give-birth-in-america). Here is the [archived time when the Childbirth Connection link worked.](https://web.archive.org/web/20190424195841/http://transform.childbirthconnection.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Cost-of-Having-a-Baby1.pdf) >It’s nearly impossible to put a price tag on giving birth in America, since costs vary dramatically by state and hospital. But one 2013 study by the the advocacy group Childbirth Connection found that, on average, hospitals charged $32,093 for an uncomplicated vaginal birth and newborn care, and $51,125 for a standard caesarean section and newborn care. Insurance typically covers a large chunk of those costs, but families are still often on the hook for thousands of dollars. >Another estimate from the International Federation of Health Plans put the average amount insurers paid for a vaginal birth in the US at $10,808 in 2015. It's "nearly impossible" to know the cost of a procedure that takes a day and half to leave the hospital and happened to nearly half the US population, 86 percent of women 40 to 44 while if African Americans commit 13% + 1 murders that is prima facie racism? Sure, costs will vary across state lines [(to a max of 1.5x higher in Cali than Missouri)](https://www.alarmnewengland.com/hs-fs/hubfs/cost%20of%20living%20in%20the%20united%20states.jpg?width=600&name=cost%20of%20living%20in%20the%20united%20states.jpg) but doesn't imply inaccuracy of those differences and their effect on the national average. At the bottom it mentions the study again (later found out to be done by Truven Analytics who were in business in 2013 for 1 year and riding the AI buzz of that time) and states no has noticed because the insurance covers it upwards of 90%. >American families rarely shoulder the full costs of childbirth on their own – but still pay far more than in other industrialized nations. Nearly half of American mothers are covered by Medicaid, a program available to low income households that covers nearly all birth costs. But people with private insurance still regularly pay thousands of dollars in co-pays, deductibles and partially reimbursed services when they give birth. Childbirth Connection put the average out of pocket childbirth costs for mothers with insurance at $3,400 in 2013. While I'm sure The Guardian would love the state to pay for simple and routine procedures at 90%, bad enough that it's being covered per se by men and Ann Coulter, that being called insurance would make Ben Shapiro's rage desalinate all the leftist tears in his tumbler. Well, seems suspicious. [The study](https://web.archive.org/web/20190424195841/http://transform.childbirthconnection.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Cost-of-Having-a-Baby1.pdf), like the hired thugs they are, titled their report "Cost of having a Baby" while including in their methodology "3 months of VIP status for the infant too, who may have got hit by some forceps during The Procedure" >The purpose of this study was to quantify the overall costs of maternity care services for having a baby, including all prenatal care services, intrapartum care services, and postpartum care services for the mother. In addition, the partners requested that the current study provide newborncare costs, which included medical care services provided during the birth hospitalization and during the first three months of life. [...] The cost of having a baby includes costs for both the mother and her baby from prenatal through postpartum and newborn care. Oh, apologies from a broken link mistitled PDF file in their Limitations: >It is probable that linked mothers and newborns are selectively different from unlinked mothers and newborns. Second, the newborn costs include three months worth of newborn care. In addition, it could be argued that newborn care should not be considered as maternity care. Third, maternal and newborn costs are dependent phenomena and could be highly correlated. and 9 months of maternal drugs >Another issue to consider deals with the pregnancy-related pharmacy costs. Two types of pharmacy costs were calculated in this study. One set of costs aggregates and calculates the average for all pharmacy expenditures dispensed to women over the entire maternal period (prenatal and postpartum). The second set of costs only includes medications used by pregnant women in the nine-month prenatal period identified using the Medical Episode Grouper (MEG) for 16women with a live birth in 2010. It should be noted that using the MEG logic, the majority of drugs are categorized as pregnancy-related, meaning that there is a great deal of overlap in the list of drugs used to calculate maternal-related and pregnancy-related pharmacy costs.We believe pregnancy-related pharmacy costs are overestimated. Without a diagnosis on a drug claim, there is no systematic way to determine if a drug was truly pregnancy-related. These results should be interpreted with caution. Correlated, but not interchangeable as we find out on page 79.. On page 79 it gives more comparable figures of Intrapartum costs of $16,165 for Vaginal and $24,572 for C-section, below 2 times the original $51,125. Of course, take into consideration the usual median income disparity and taxes between the US and other countries. That's basically all it takes for Bernie Sanders $15,041 C-section tweet but in this case there's a far bigger opportunity to create moderates.