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You're smart to realize that if you keep working most of your money will go to childcare and it really won't make sense unless you have a high earning career.
We are "income challenged" and we do just fine with me as a stay at home mom, however we have only 1 car which is paid for, take advantage of gov't programs to help out (WIC, etc.), no other debt, and buy generic everything (you really don't need name brand diapers, etc. ).
My first child showed up right away so I guess I never really had time to NOT afford kids, if that makes sense. We made less then than we do now and looking back i'm not sure how we did it but we did. We didn't go into debt, we got by just fine with being careful and living within even our very meager means. It can be done if you want!
Most insurance plans have individual and family annual limits. For instance, my family will never pay more than 1.5k per year regardless of how many expenses we have in that year. So there is no way for my bills to go up tremendously. My deductible is very black and white. I don't even need to check with the OBs and the hospitals on what their bills will be because my obligations are very clear in my insurance. Furthermore, hosptials and doctors allow payments. It's not like she needs the deductible money up front. Only copays are required in advance.
Then you have the remarkable type of insurance I mentioned and in my experience. I certainly wouldn't say most have that type of insurance and many many don't even have insurance.
Our particular insurance at this time pays 100% until a certain limit, then we have to pay 100% until we have paid out $2000 out of pocket. After that we have to pay 20%. I don't recall our exact limit for the year for the family, but I believe for each person it's $5000/per year.
UNLESS the doc is out of the network then we have to pay more. We ran into that problem when I had a miscarriage and the anesthesiologist who handled my D&C was not in the network even though my OB/Gyn and the hospital both were. Yeah, that was not something we expected and even fighting it didn't get that almost $1000 bill paid. We had to pay it out of pocket and since it was not authorized by the insurance, it did not even count towards our out of pocket.
And this is with the best insurance we currently have available through my husband's company.
So, while YOU won't pay any higher than $1500, there are many many others who will indeed pay higher than that. Hence the suggestion she check her own insurance to see what it pays/covers. Neither your insurance or my insurance are a good guide to see what it will cost her. Therefore it was an accurate suggestion that it could run from a low end to a high end.
And yes, if her insurance has an 80/20 payment deal, then she would be better off knowing how much the doc/hosp will be charging in order to figure out her cost.
That's great....but be aware than many policies (especially for smaller companies) have MUCH higher annual limits. My husband's company for instance. The policy they offer has an annual limit of $8K. Now, if you have that baby in December and it needs additional healthcare into Jan. you could find yourselves $16K in the hole in 2 months. Not to mention, their insurance monthly premium might go up also. My company has different payments for 1, 2 or "more than 2" dependents.....
Which was one of the reasons I went back to work - for a larger company with much better insurance coverage.
Yes. I'm supposed to have a 1.5K limit but ended up with a $3K bill when my daughter was in the hospital and a letter from the insurance company stating they were not counting any of it towards our family maximum . I complained and they told me her injury was caused by negligence (she kicked the bunk bed ladder as she rolled out of bed and the hook went through her eye socket.
While the doctors thought I had a product liability lawsuit, I had to sign a statement that I wasn't planning on suing the manufacturer to get any payment made to the hospital by the insurance company. All it would have taken to have prevented this accident was for the downstand on the hook to have been too long to go through a child's eye socket and it will not be fixed because suing would probably cost us more than we'd win and anything we won would go to the insurance company.
OMG - I hope your daughter is o.k., Ivorytickler. That insurance company sounds like a nightmare.
As far as insurance and having babies goes - I'm pretty sure that with Kaiser, prenatal care and hospital births (both regular and cesarean) are 100% covered, aside from the regular $10 copays for some visits.
Perhaps. But having a baby because you "wanted" one before you were financially ready for one would show emotional and psychological immaturity as well as a lack of preparation. To quote the old adage, "if you have to ask..."
Waiting to start your family till you're financially ready is just another form of delaying gratification...it's not a bad thing. I'm not sure why so many people are coming down so hard on the other side of the coin. No one's telling this young woman, or anyone else for that matter, to never ever have kids; they're just explaining how they afforded children. In my case, I waited. That's how you afford anything, from a baby to a trip to Africa to a home of your own--you save and wait.
The thing with kids is that you can't UN-have them. Once they're there, they're there. And I would never, ever want to be in a situation where I defined (for example) something crucial like braces as "not a need" and sent my poor child to school to be tormented for having funky crooked teeth. That's why I waited--so my kids won't have to suffer for my inability to delay gratification. Guess what? I'm still just as much of a mama as I would have been back in the day.
I agree with you 100%. And yet....we did it "wrong" and things still worked out OK. She still got the orthodontia, a few trips abroad, the music lessons, the elite college education.
In some ways, I look back on my life and it's just one big crazy, blessed, miracle.
I was too young, my husband died, I ended up a single parent. Do I recommend that path? Not really. It's pretty hard, but it's also pretty amazing what a parent will do for his or her child.
I guess I had a few things on my side: zero debt, low cost of living, and insurance.
I guess for the OP, I'd say cover the above^^^^. Plan on having the parent who brings in the least $$$ staying at home for at least ~2 years.You can manage with one car at this point and will save on meals-out and clothing. Infant care is crazy expensive. Once they can walk and are potty-trained it gets more affordable.
people have mentioned a couple of times how expensive the OB bills are etc...
do you have insurance? cause i had my son going on 4 years ago, with basic insurance through my job, and the OB bill after everything was literally $275...no this is not a typo. i was shocked too. the total bill was over 10k, but after insurance and how the doctor and insurance co did their figuring, that was ALL we had to pay.
after that, first and second year of course there are dr visits every few weeks, which was $20 per visit, plus possible meds--also between $15--$20, but all together i dont think we spend more than $700 on the first year for medical expenses
Yes, we have insurance. It used to be good, now it not real great. very time we go into a pediatrician's office it is anywhere from $100-$350 for each visit. This is the adjusted rate we pay after the insurance negotiates their rates.
The prescription company we have is still OK. But the drug costs are still rising. And one of the drugs my spouse needs, there is NO generic for.
About 3 years ago that stopped that "copay" thing. That was great, but alas no longer.
Dental is really expensive. I won't even go into that! Yeaikes.... it is like a car payment everytime we have something done. Luckily cleanings are still free. I don't know how people w/o insurance do it! I know now why people declare medical bankruptcies.
Yeah I had complications of high blood pressure with both pregnancies. And I had to cut way back on the hours for the last one. Worked a half day only for the last 3 months. But I went right from work, to the doctors appt, then to the hospital to have baby.
First kid, went back to work 5 weeks after I delivered. Could not afford to take more time off. That really s*cked... if I were to do it over again, we should have saved more $$ to have me take a bit more time off. Unfortunately the business I was working for, lost all its accounts when I was 9 months pregnant and essentially I had no job.
Had to go job hunting right AFTER I delivered - couldn't exactly interview when I was 9 months pregnant w/high blood pressure. No way when I got pregnant that we could predict THAT happening.
Yeah, all this kind of unexpected stuff happens.... you can't possibly plan for all this.
OMG - I hope your daughter is o.k., Ivorytickler. That insurance company sounds like a nightmare.
As far as insurance and having babies goes - I'm pretty sure that with Kaiser, prenatal care and hospital births (both regular and cesarean) are 100% covered, aside from the regular $10 copays for some visits.
She's fine. I can't say enough about the care she got at DMC. He plastic surgeon was so good you can't even see a scar even if you know where to look. Her surgeon can find it but I can't.
Apparently, accidents that could result in lawsuits are handled differently by my insurance company. Must have been somewhere in the fine print.
The insurance company kept sending us paperwork to sign saying that "Accidents like this often result in lawsuits". We had to keep signing off that we were not going to sue to get what they paid paid. I'm not happy with the insurance company which is why I no longer have that policy. The one we have now has higher co pays but a lower maximum and my husband's employer covers the first $2K of our deductible. Probably costs us more in the long run but, as we found out, it only takes one accident to make up for those premiums saved.
Some things the insurance would not cover at all like her opthamologist and the anesthesiologist. Apparently, you CAN have a hook removed from your eye socket, your orbital and your cheek bone rebuilt without being knocked out and you don't need an eye doctor to look at the eye and make sure everything is growing properly afterwards. Who knew
BCBS sucks. Lesson learned. Read the fine print.
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). 
. I complained and they told me her injury was caused by negligence (she kicked the bunk bed ladder as she rolled out of bed and the hook went through her eye socket. 
