
The cost of raising a child in America has soared (2018) - jelliclesfarm
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-5-charts-show-how-expensive-it-is-to-raise-children-today-2018-03-29
======
foxfired
In January of this year, I was blessed with two beautiful fraternal twins.
Twins come out earlier and are expected to be preemies usually. The problem
was, they were due on March 15.

We spent two months in the NICU (newborn intensive care unit). The nurses
couldn't be more amazing. They took care of those babies like they were their
own. And along the way, they took care of us. They made sure nothing was ever
missing.

My sons got new pacifiers every time one got dirty. If their covers ever so
slightly touch the floor it was thrown into the laundry basket. Their feeding
tubes were constantly changed. I was grateful.

My sons were born barely weighing 2 pounds, but they came out of the hospital
as plump babies. Then the bill came.

We have insurance. In fact, a very good insurance. The bill for the first born
came a couple weeks later and it was in the amount of 1.25 million dollars. (I
fainted) We called the insurance. They told us to wait, that the insurance
will kick in.

It kicked in and the bill came back rectified with the amount of 250k. The
adjusted bill for the second child came shortly after.

To give you an idea what is inside the bill, they moved the babies every
couple days to a different section of the nicu. The bill showed that some
section charged up to 20k a night. Those pacifiers that fell on the floor each
cost 35 to 50 dollars. The formula they provided when we didn't bring breast
milk cost hundreds of dollars.

I don't have any credit card debt, I'm frugal when it comes to trivial
purchases, I pay for what I can afford. I even have insurance. But then, there
is a bill to pay. To this day, we are trying to get the bill to be a
reasonable price. And so far, it seems like it's going to happen. We are very
hopeful.

~~~
nicudad
My second child had a problem at birth and out of an abundance of caution was
rushed to the NICU unit in a nearby city. I agree this was reasonable. I also
agree the NICU unit and hospital are professional, effective, and sincere.

After a few days it was clear there was no ongoing problem and absolutely no
issues. He was not a preemie. At this point the bill would have been around
$100,000.

But they insisted to keep him longer to be safe and we couldn't say no.
Eventually he accumulated various hospital acquired infections and the stay
had to be extended.

After six weeks he was released. The bill was $1.5 million.

Parents aren't allowed to say no. If they do it's evidence of neglect. And
most parents wouldn't dare to and go with professional opinions.

Entering the NICU was a room where you had to clean your hands and arms
thoroughly. This is good. Doctors and staff weren't required to use this room
and never did. The argument is they could use the wash stations inside the
unit instead.

So, what's the big deal? Well those doctors come in through the same door as
visitors and they touch the door handle with their unsterile hands. Then the
visitors/parents, having just sterilized, touch that door handle.

I brought this up and it was discarded as nonsense. After all I am not an
expert and they are.

Yet still, subsequently, there was my kid, with an infection he got from the
hospital. No problem man, only cost me a bit over a million. Not their issue.

~~~
t0mbstone
I can't help but think you might be able to sue the hospital for following
unsanitary procedures in the NICU? Have you talked to a lawyer?

------
q845712
The article points to housing as one of the largest factors of raising a
child, and mentions healthcare as well.

To my very limited understanding, we calculate inflation from some fixed [per
comments below: not entirely fixed] index of consumer goods prices [per
comments below: which include some notional aggregate of rent].

Is it possible that instead of saying "The cost of children, housing,
healthcare, and education have risen sharply" we should instead be saying
"Inflation has increased substantially more than previously calculated because
the price of a loaf of bread has been fixed by subsidies"?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _we calculate inflation from some fixed index of consumer goods prices_

CPI includes housing, healthcare and tuition. The basket isn’t fixed, _e.g._
1999 CPI didn’t include cell phone data costs.

~~~
opencl
The weighting applied to housing, healthcare, and tuition appears to be
nonsensically low compared to the fraction of income most people spend on
them.

Though to be fair CPI is computed nationally and things like housing prices
are so localized that it's impossible to come up with a number that makes
sense across the whole country anyway.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _CPI is computed nationally_

There are CPIs calculated for each metropolitan area. When I'm considering my
savings, for instance, I look at New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA [1] and
New York-Newark-Jersey City [2] statistics.

National CPI is useful if you're planning policy. Local CPI is better for
individual planning.

[1]
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUURA101SA0](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUURA101SA0)

[2] [https://www.bls.gov/regions/new-york-new-jersey/news-
release...](https://www.bls.gov/regions/new-york-new-jersey/news-
release/ConsumerPriceIndex_NewYorkArea.htm)

------
souprock
Most of this is totally optional. I have a dozen kids, and I'm sure not
spending that kind of money per kid.

Births are usually cheap. You can go it alone for $0 or get a midwife for
$2000 to $6000. Most of us have health insurance with an out-of-pocket
maximum. For example, mine tops out around $11,000. Crazy bills can usually be
negotiated, with the hospital very aware that you might just not pay at all.

Child care is sort of free (though an opportunity cost) when done by family.
That choice also strengthens the family relationships. It scales well, with
older kids assigned to help younger kids.

Housing isn't bad unless you insist on a bedroom for each kid. You need a
house for yourself anyway, and most houses have 3 bedrooms. Homeschool to
avoid the school district bidding wars.

Food... is a bit of an issue. I go through about $4000 per month, but I'm not
living on beans and rice. Being more frugal, $100 per kid per month should be
possible for a large family.

Transportation can be mostly avoided.

Clothes become cheap due to hand-me-down policy.

Sports can be cheap. You don't have to sign up for hockey. Play stick ball.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
Are you home schooling? In CA, depending on where you live, it costs the state
and tax payers 10-14k/annum per child. That’s for 12 years.

Dozen kids would cost about 1.6 million for 12 years of public education.

ETA: I just saw that you mentioned homeschooling.

If it’s ok to ask, how much are your expenses per month and do you own your
home?

~~~
souprock
I get dual-enrollment for free here in Florida, which most of my kids use to
get AA degrees, so the state/county is paying something. I spent about $1000
for AP Chemistry labs and possibly about that much on all kinds of textbooks.

Expenses are primarily food, at about $4000 per month. The rest isn't usually
notable unless something is broken, such as when our 4-ton air conditioner is
low on coolant or gets the fan stuck. Normally somebody needs surgery (cracked
skull, rib cage correction, etc.) so my medical bills hit the yearly out-of-
pocket maximum at around $11,000. We probably do 100 to 200 miles per week,
fuel being $2.25, so that is pretty much nothing.

I paid off my home in 8 years. It's 3500 square feet on 0.39 acre, about 0.9
mile from the beach. I got it for about $310,000 after the crash.

~~~
onemoresoop
How big a family do you feed on $4000/month? At first it seemed a bit high but
I know nothing about your household so won’t play the assumption game. I, my
wife and my year old spend at most 1000 on food monthly. We eat quite healthy
but my wife cooks daily so that saves a bit.

~~~
souprock
A few comments above I said "I have a dozen kids". With parents, that is 14
people.

We cook. I look for sale prices. We eat a lot of chicken, but we also get
fish.

I count just 3 of you. Scaling up for family size and ignoring the sizes of
the people, your $1000 would be $4666 for me. I guess I'm doing well to spend
only $4000. Scaling the other direction, you'd be on a similar per-person
budget if you spent $857 per month.

~~~
EADGBE
Not to discount, but I'm sure you benefit from buying in bulk as well. We are
a family of 5, about as efficient with food costs ($250/week) (yet, also our
preschoolers are still quite picky eaters).

I'm just enjoying your comments. Sounds like you're doing a lot of things
right. Right on!

~~~
souprock
It depends what you mean by "bulk".

I buy normal packages from a normal supermarket. I try to buy a bit extra when
there is a sale, but I only have two refrigerators and a chest freezer. What
is "bulk" to most people can be eaten in a week. I might empty the
supermarket's supply of sliced cheddar cheese when it goes on sale, grabbing
10 pounds of it, but we'll have that eaten within a week or two. Sometimes
I'll grab all the extra-large packages of ground beef or an entire display box
full of canned herring. We go through 2 gallons of milk per day. There just
isn't any way to really stock up on things without more storage space, and I'd
have to find a store that wouldn't run out of things when I go shopping.

Maybe I should see about having Sysco trucks deliver food. :-)

~~~
EADGBE
By bulk I mean the quantities _not_ usually offered in grocery stores. Club-
card-style outlets, basically. Of course; that's another trip, and a
membership fee, and they don't always have everything you need like a typical
grocery store will.

For us, it's always a struggle with waffles (And there's only 5 of us). If
everyone eats two waffles in the morning (which happens 98% of the time)
that's 10 waffles a day. Hardly anyone carries 48-counts so we end up grabbing
as many 24-count boxes as we can and usually have to make another run by
Sunday evening. Maybe when the kids get older we could switch to a waffle
iron.

------
mistrial9
Medical guilds, unions and financial players are mature, strong and in-place.
Many if not most, are well paid across the spectrum, and therefore can afford
their own services. Why bring prices down ?

ps- if you think this is an endorsement of the situation, think again; simply
a cold-blooded game theory thought on a most emotional topic

~~~
tenebrisalietum
Your guilds will get disrupted with a OBGYNer or BirthBnB at some point.

------
gavanwoolery
I'm having identical twins, classified as high risk. The cost is mind-
boggling. I've already paid $7000+ out of pocket, and they have not even been
born yet. Costs are mostly related to having to do ultrasounds all the time,
and one MRI.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
What insurance plan can result in $7k out of pocket for unborn children?

~~~
irrational
A very poor one it sounds like. Even a high deductible plan shouldn't have an
out of pocket expense that is that high.

~~~
EvanAnderson
All my plans since 2013 have been $12K+ deductible. (Self-employed in Ohio.)
Every medical event is a major shopping and price comparison exercise, and
nearly every provider refuses to quote hard-and-fast prices. (You also get
treated very badly by some practices who act terribly put-off that you'd have
the lack of decency to ask about prices. You get that treatment double when
it's about a procedure for your kid. P/A in the ER was a straight-up asshole
when I questioned if a x-ray of my daughter was strictly necessary.)

~~~
pkaye
Curious what is your yearly premiums? Is it a high deductible plan?

~~~
EvanAnderson
The current year is a high deductible plan (as all of mine have been since
starting self-employment in 2004) but is not HSA-eligible. (Most years we've
had an HSA-eligible plan, but some years none were available or they were
vastly more expensive than the non-HSA eligible, which makes no sense.) We
found a way to get an employer-sponsored plan thru my LLC this year and that
dropped the premiums to just under $12K w/ a $13.6K family deductible. The
marketplace plan we were on last year, had we renewed for 2019, would have
been $17.5K in premiums w/ the same deductible. Neither is HSA-eligible.

~~~
pkaye
I was punching some numbers into Covered California marketplace and for $12K
you could get some pretty good plans. And if you qualify for the subsidy it is
much lower. Some of the HMO plans have no or low deductibles.

~~~
EvanAnderson
Sounds like California has a much nicer market than we do in Ohio. I had one
provider to choose from in the Marketplace for my county in 2019. Their
"Silver" plan was what we had in 2018, chosen over the "Bronze" because the
lower-priced "Bronze" was 20% co-insurance on inpatient care versus 100%
coverage after deductible on "Siler". Aside from that company's plans those
who purchased on the Marketplace in my county for 2019 had no other choices.

------
KumarAseem
I think it has raised in most of the countries.

In India, raising a child now is a very tough one. 1) Health Insurance - Not
everyone has it and many who have turns out to be not sufficient. 2) Education
- Schooling has become extremely expensive. There is not much regulation and
schools apply a lot of tricks to get money from you, mainly under the guise of
extra-curricular activities or development. They force the parents to pay, and
legal recourse isn't available. 3) Health again - With the bad air, water and
food that the children are getting these days, a lot of them get some or the
other illness on a regular basis, which forces the kids to visit doctors
frequently and take medicines. These all doctor visits don't get covered under
insurance a lot of times. Kids of today are not developing a strong immune
system. To top it all, many parents don't let their kids play outside. They
give them a mobile and think they have done their duty.

I forsee a very bad/difficult future for a lot of children.

------
paulcole
Article doesn’t even touch on the environmental costs. Probably the worst
thing you can do for the environment is have a kid.

Edit: Why downvote this? It’s like talking about the cost of driving while
ignoring all the costs being externalized and offloaded on everyone else.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Why downvoted? Maybe two reasons. First, it's off topic. You look like you're
trying to find a way to sneak your hobbyhorse into the discussion, even when
it doesn't really fit.

Second, by the same logic, the _best_ thing you could do for the environment
is go on a murder spree and then commit suicide.

That should appall you. You should respond "No, because..." (If you don't,
seriously, please get help rather than committing suicide.)

But what's the reason for your "no"? Because the murder spree is immoral? (It
is.) Because suicide would hurt too many people around you? (It would.) Or is
it because, despite the environmental cost of your continued existence, you
feel that you could make a positive (net) difference with the rest of your
life?

But if you can, _so can your child._

~~~
paulcole
Boy, must have been a fun ride down the slippery slope from don't have kids to
go on a murder spree.

> despite the environmental cost of your continued existence, you feel that
> you could make a positive (net) difference with the rest of your life?

I definitely do not feel that. I recognize that essentially every person is a
net negative on the world (especially myself). But I have already been born
and there's nothing I'm willing to do to change that at this time.

I mean I get that people like having kids, but at least acknowledge how stupid
it is to have one and then recycle or whatever like it makes some difference.

This is not off topic at all by the way. The article is on the cost parents
pay to give birth. But ignores the fact that parents are getting an
unbelievable discount by offloading the environmental costs to the rest of the
world. If we were serious about combatting climate change, having a child
would be all but prohibitively expensive.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
That's not quite a slippery slope. I didn't say that people like you are going
to _become_ murderers. I said that, by the standard you are using to choose to
not have kids, that would be a good thing to do (and therefore maybe your
standard is less reasonable than it appears to you to be). But you seem to
find it comforting to have a glib dismissal to use, rather than actually
interacting with the point.

Now, you did kind of answer it in a way. The only way my murder point actually
makes sense is if reducing the population (or the environment) is your _only_
value. You obviously have other values as well (as you should). But just as
those other values rule out murder and suicide (though that might benefit the
environment), they could also allow a child.

~~~
paulcole
And if those values allow a child, they could also allow living in a huge
house, flying in airplanes, generally being wasteful, and well, look where
that's got us.

Basically do whatever the fuck you want because your value system has allowed
you to justify it to yourself.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Permit me to point out that you are now doing a slippery slope - or at least,
doing as much of a slippery slope as I did.

