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You can’t even pay people to have more kids
(www.vox.com)
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this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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My wife and I are well to do in the US, with a good household income that probably puts us in the top 2% or some shit. And to maintain the sort of life that used to be considered “middle class”, we need all of that income for our family of 4. Which means that we both work. We would have liked more kids. But there is only so much time to go around. Fuck are we supposed to do, have another kid and hire a nanny? Fuck is the point of that, we wouldn’t even be parenting.
You want more kids? Give people more time. Which means LESS WORK and BETTER CHILDCARE OPTIONS.
Not to mention better healthcare! Healthcare costs are the primary reason US citizens go bankrupt. Kids get sick, adults get sick, and if one of the adults in the house gets sick and can't help bring in money for the kids then the entire household essentially goes from upper/middle to lower or bankrupt. If a kid gets very sick, oftentimes one of the parents has to stop working to argue every single claim that insurance would be paying but doesn't, and call every department of every doctors office or hospital to get an itemized bill and get it lowered to a reasonable cost rather than them asking for a blank check. I'm afraid of having a sick kid and losing my job to their healthcare organization (note: not their healthcare directly, but calling insurance asking them to pay for life saving care, then calling hospitals asking why a small bandage is $1200), losing my house to bankruptcy after healthcare costs, and losing any semblance of future career due to time off and losing myself.
Absolutely. Taking healthcare costs off our backs would go a long way. The birth of my first kid absolutely wiped out the savings I had built up since getting out of school, and that was WITH insurance coverage. Six years of careful planning and saving just flushed down the toilet in an instant. There's just no financially-responsible way to manage the risk of a hospital bill that could range from hundreds to hundreds of thousands depending on what does or doesn't go according to plan, not to mention the following 18+ years of unknowns. It's kind of a wonder that people are still having as many kids as they are these days.
Not to mention insurance won't tell you what they cover until you have someone done. "Do you cover this" could mean they cover 10%, 70%, or 100%, and they don't even know what their system will approve. This is with good insurance. Unless you are apart of the top 5% then everyone can be wiped from you very quickly without notice. Eat the rich anyone?
Not that we had much choice along the way, but you're right, we were almost completely in the dark about how much anything was going to cost as it happened. Various groups were mailing us bills for the full amounts even before insurance had settled their portion. Nobody in the entire insurance and billing game is on your side.