Hacker News Reader

Comment by hi-v-rocknroll | Hacker News Reader

First, mothers-to-be in the US need single-payer healthcare, not be sentenced to prison for having a miscarriage, and not told they must be dying of sepsis before they can receive healthcare.

In a Where To Invade Next? (2015)-style of policy prescriptions, the US should copy baby boxes, use policies that work, and measure the results of experiments with creative solutions as long as they work rather than putting the military-industrial complex and profits of big pharma and megahospitals before lives and the standards of living of regular people to not go bankrupt.

View on HN

> First, mothers-to-be in the US need single-payer healthcare

This is already true, pregnant women qualify for Medicaid in every state. Medicaid pays for ~50% of all births.

This is a good point. If you do not count the half of births that aren’t covered by Medicaid, all of them are

Mothers who are covered by Medicaid may have alternative arrangements (such as employer sponsored healthcare) which they prefer.

Income limits usually apply still. In my state, its up to 32K for pregnant women or for those with a child under age 1. For children 1 and 5 it goes down to about 20K.

If you're above those limits, no medicaid. You can go on ACA/Obamacare plans but those are (much) more expensive even with subsidies, at least in my state.

A birth all in all is surely way above 10k dollars. So people are literally expected to pay 5k+ to have a child? If that's not stressful enough for many poorer people I don't know either

50% of births, not 50% of the cost of all births

If it's an emergency of some sort, it's probably 100% covered. The thing though is that MedicAid is run similarly to Medicare where private insurers get involved but provide really shitty plans with terrible formularies and very limited choices for providers. Also, there's widespread healthcare provider bias, stigma, and discrimination against MedicAid patients.

Also: Username checks out.

It is bonafide 100% government paid coverage for anything pregnancy or pediatrics related.

From: https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/cost-sharing/cost-sharing-...

> Out of pocket costs cannot be imposed for emergency services, family planning services, pregnancy-related services, or preventive services for children. Generally, out of pocket costs apply to all Medicaid enrollees except those specifically exempted by law and most are limited to nominal amounts. Exempted groups include children, terminally ill individuals, and individuals residing in an institution

Only the birth or also preliminary examinations?

Yes. Why is it so difficult to believe that the US has an extensive safety net carveout for pregnant women?

Because women’s healthcare has become a political football to the detriment of their care.

Maybe because 2017 it looked like this

https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/report/medicaid-cov...

Pattern recognition

If the state forces you to have a baby, the least it can do is pay.

There's an incredible variety of health care needed in the 9 months before birth, and well after. That care is poorly covered in the US compared to most developed nations.

Yes that is also covered under Medicaid!

Inconsistently. It's a patchwork. MedicAid is really, really bad except for emergency care.

How much of your most recent pregnancy was literally and not theoretically 100% covered by Medicaid?

We were both in college when my first child was born with one $13/hr summer internships's worth of income. Medicaid covered 100% of everything; I paid $0 out of pocket.

This was in 2010.

MedicAid is absolute trash. It barely covers anything, few doctors accept it, and it isn't even close to proper healthcare.

This is false. Medicaid coverage is better than even European healthcare systems. It will cover rare disease drugs that aren’t paid for in the EU (it has to by law).

Plus the OOP expenses are basically zero.

While true not all doctor accept new Medicaid patients, you can find care.

>First, mothers-to-be in the US need single-payer healthcare, not be sentenced to prison for having a miscarriage,

In your opinion, sure, but American voters disagree, which is why it's like this. American voters chose the Supreme Court that made this recent change.

The majority of the supreme court was appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote.

Indeed. American voters choose maternal mortality for the same reasons and in the same way that they choose gun and motor vehicle fatalities.

The US already has baby boxes at pretty much every fire station

I'm pretty sure that the commenter was referring to baby boxes as in "box of supplies to be able to take care of a baby" [0] and not as in "box to abandon a baby if you cannot take care of it" [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_package

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_hatch

I know they have this in Finland, but I suspect it's more as tradition than need. The other Nordic countries does not have anything like that. In Norway there's a diaper brand that gives out boxes to new mothers, but it's more like a fun thing than something that is needed.

What works is a proper health care system with a predefined care path for pregnancies including regular checkups, access to courses and educational material about pregnancy and child birth, low bar for paid sick leave for pregnant women and paid maternity leave mandated by law.

We have them in Scotland, I found it genuinely useful.

Contents: https://www.parentclub.scot/baby-box

A couple of colleagues in New York had their first kids around the same time, swapping stories is always pretty eye opening.

Yes, without much knowledge on the subject, I do intuitively agree with you. I don't think baby boxes per se can make that much of a difference — they're more like the "icing on the cake" of a solid social support policy to help expectant and new mothers.

Less need for US baby boxes when you have abortions possibilties like in Norway.

Life is most precious in the US until you are born.

Since you dug up those links from Wikipedia, it should be noted that baby hatch is first in the list on baby box, indicating it’s the more common usage.

But also maybe the term baby box is too ambiguous to be used at all, if it means both of those things.

I know a MAGA who got pregnant right after moving to Idaho(!) while keeping her remote-work job in California.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com