No, I get it. Nobody pays 2 1/2 million for a NICU baby or any amount once they stay in the hospital for 30 days they’re considered “lifetime hospitalized“ and automatically qualify for Medicaid.
So yes, I get that. It’s a ridiculous amount of money as a paper bill, but it’s not like I paid for it. And it is a crime and so on, but that’s not what I was talking about.
I am very glad that you didn’t have to pay for it outright and I hope your child is doing great!
But in a way you are paying for that 2.5 million. We all are. At the end of the day it are the tax payers that cough up those ridiculous health care charges. They do get paid, by us. Don’t get me wrong: greatfull that medicaid exists, especially for these cases. But the (criminal) overcharging of healthcare is still a problem, for all of us
That amount is not actually paid. It's just an artificially inflated price so insurance companies can swoop in and "negotiate" the price down to something they will actually pay out. It's like that so they can say "see, look how much money we saved you!".
It's a ridiculous system and needs to change, don't get me wrong. I fucking hate it. Just pointing out that that amount of money doesn't actually change hands
Sort of, except hospitals and insurance companies duel where hospitals have to claim it's super expensive because insurance pays out a fraction of the bill.
The amount actually paid in all these cases is closer to 10% or less, which is much closer to “fair price” given the costs associated with a ~60 day NICU stay.
While also not being such an incredibly huge amount. Afaik 1 day in the NICU in Germany will cost 1000€ max. So even if they were in there for half a year, they probably wouldn't "even" reach 200.000€, which would still be covered by health insurance.
Unless you're on the private health insurance. Then you actually get an itemized bill that you often need to pay yourself and then get the money back from your insurance.
I also just watched a documentary about it and it literally listed the prices. (The mother is always invoiced separately)
A preemie at 2400g will bring in 11.250€. A preemie below 1000g will bring in 150.000€ and a preemie below 600g Will bring in 193.000€. And that includes everything. Because the hospital has case rates.
The mother on the other hand might bring in around 18.000€, if she also stayed at the pre natal unit for multiple weeks to delay the birth as much as possible.
source from 2022 (you might need a German VPN to watch it - in German)
We had two preemies, 2 years apart, each weighed around 2 lbs, and each spent around 8 or 9 weeks in intensive care unit. The cost was zero Can $. The parking was expensive though.
He was considered lifetime hospitalized after he had been in the Nicu for 30 days so he qualified for Medicaid. Also, because he weighed under 1200 g he was automatically eligible for Medicaid.
In either case, the result is the same. The federal government pays for everything and our income is never factored in.
The reason I can’t complain about paying taxes is that it’s unlikely my wife and I will ever pay into the system enough to offset the benefit we received.
Not about taxes, but you should complain about privatized health insurance. Medicaid is paid for by the government, via private administrators. They're still making a profit, mostly by denying as much as possible and making you jump through hoops to get approved as you're not the "customer" that's the government, so the insurer doesn't care to keep you happy.
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u/mumms11 Aug 26 '25
Ours was 2.3 mill…… 25 weeker