But if I understand it correctly, for some unfathomable reason American health insurance policies usually have a deductible on them - so even if you are insured, you could still be paying few thousand dollars out of your pocket, no? That's insane.
There are lots of problems with the American health system, but the concept of a deductible for insurance isn't one of them. Insurance without deductible is really a pre-payment plan for "normal" expenses (along with its administrative overhead) wedded to a true insurance plan.
Half (or more of) the battle in these public policy discussions is coming to an agreement on terms.
Lots of insurance plans in other industries have deductibles in other countries, and the US certainly isn't unique in this respect. For example, deductibles are the norm in health insurance plans in Switzerland, which has a system not all that different from that in the US.
In Switzerland the deductible is annual, not per visit. Once you hit that cap, everything is free (except voluntary cosmetic stuff).
Thus, insurance actually acts like insurance, like car insurance or fire insurance, there to catch you in a bad situation, not to give you discounts on your day-to-day expenses.
In Switzerland there is a deductible for adults but everything connected to pregnancy and child-birth is deductible-free. Also, kids below 18 yrs old have mandatory insurance that is has no deductible, thus treatments for them are free.
It's much easier to have an intelligent and reasonable conversation about something if you avoid the editorializing and hyperbole by calling everything you may disagree with "unfathomable" and "insane."
That's an average. The problem is the huge variance. Also just because you have heath insurance doesn't necessarily mean your insurance will pick up the tab.
Because of the affordable care act, no (thankfully, as pregnancy was a pre-existing condition) but your insurance may not cover a doctor or hospital which could (even accidentally) add up to thousands of dollars. Ask who people are when they walk into your room, and whether their treatment is covered depending on your insurance.
Not sure why this got downvoted - pre-existing conditions are covered by law but that doesn’t mean the procedure at that hospital is covered at the same level as an in-network shop.
I’ve been charged out of network at an in-network hospital because the physician didn’t identify themselves or their network. If they’re not your primary doc it might be worth asking for someone who is covered to save you hundreds or thousands of dollars.
People save up for having a kid the way they save up for anything else expensive. Also most hospitals are 'kind' enough to allow you to set up a payment plan so you can pay it off over a few years.
No, normal case is your or your husband's insurance pays for it
Deductibles can vary wildly depending on someone's insurance plan. However, there are a myriad of financing options, charities, etc if for some reason you can't afford that.
I would estimate the vast majority of people in the US need to budget at least $5k for a baby, if everything goes right. It would be better to have $10k cash though depending on prenatal visits, c section possibility, and multitude of other costs that can arise.
Does healthcare insurance pay for that in the US ? In the EU, this is considered a personal life-choice procedure and very rarely handled by insurances - like cosmetic surgery. (being the EU though, you can get it for free using public healthcare)
There may be a confusion here, I'm referring at Private Healthcare and not Public Healthcare run by a private company.
Spain sometimes subcontract public healthcare to private hospital. However from a patient point of view, you are still treated as a public healthcare patient (i.e. you pay through your tax and the government has a specific financial agreement with the company running the hospital).
Otherwise I'm confused by France model. What's the business model of a Private Hospital is they receive no money neither from the Government nor insurances nor their patient ?
The French system is hybrid. There's public and private health insurance, and public and private hospitals.
For everyday care the public health insurance reimburses 70% and the private health insurance the remainder.
For more serious procedures (such as a baby delivery) the public health insurance reimburses 100% of the fees. The prices are fixed by law, the practitioner can charge more (if it's a private hospital) but then the private health insurance will have to pay the difference.
The public health insurance is paid through taxes (I think something like 5 to 10% of the salary?) and the private health insurance is between 50 to 100e depending on your family and coverage (glasses, teeth, etc.)
Sure, but if you for some reason don't want to give birth at an NHS hospital then your health insurance probably won't cover the costs of a private hospital.
The UK and Spain have a private health sector with Clinics, GP, ... To access those you either need to pay cash or have a private health insurance.
Both the UK and Spain have also a public health sector, with Clinics, GP, ... that is accessible for free.
In the UK and Spain, very few private health insurances covers Birth or Emergency Care: for those you are supposed to go to the public service or pay cash in a private clinic.
Other countries like Belgium have health insurances that give you the kind of extra comfort you mention. But they cost something like 5 EUR a month vs the 100 EUR in Spain and the UK.
On average yes but if there are complications or the hospital does some billing shenanigans it may cost you much more and there is almost no way to protect yourself from that other than just having a lot of money.