It’s kinda weird that you feel the need to express your bewilderment about why people choose to reproduce, when it’s been shown societies tend to collapse when they...you know, don’t.

It shouldn’t be so complicated that it takes “2 weeks of my life, hours on end”. You formulated the problem yourself, right there

I had surgery for thyroid cancer about 6 years ago, and there was an “assisting surgeon” on my bill that my insurance said was out of network and not covered. I never met the guy. My husband never met the guy. I was unconscious before he came in the room. We were never even told this might be a possibility, that I…

The U.S. only wants to make money off of its people.

Reproductive freedom is a human right. And you do sound like a dick.

Oh you don’t know the half. I was shot by a stranger (another American problem) and my insurance tried to not pay for ANY of my healthcare because the ambulance (which I also had to pay for) took me to a hospital that was out of network (I wasn’t given a choice) and the emergency surgeon was also out of network.

Yup.

Ron Howard voice: He didn’t just sound like a total dick...

I terminated a pregancy in early 2010 in large part because my insurance specifically excluded pregnancy and maternity. I was also in my late 40s, with a lovely partner who never wanted kids. But knowing that having that baby, especially as a high-risk older mother would bankrupt me, was a HUGE factor. When the ACA…

Yeah, my husband and I both have PhDs in healthcare-adjacent fields, no major health issues, and I currently work for the federal government which is basically another PhD in dealing with bureaucracy. We still have struggled to navigate the insurance and health care system. To suggest that these people simply aren’t…

Yeah, you do sound like a dick. Some people want kids, others don’t. I hate when people’s response to the cost of health care and child care is. “don’t have kids”... as if they think only rich people deserve/should reproduce.

Also, don’t take birth control b/c that is for sluts and your employer doesn’t want you to.

Don’t have a baby if you can’t afford it!

Also don’t have an abortion cuz it’s evil.

Well there are already programs in place that encourage people to work in rural areas by forgiving med school loans or giving grants tied to a certain number of years of work in a rural county. Those programs would be best run and funded by a federal or state government that gave a crap about all of their citizens’…

Nope. Subsidize it. Go to medschool debt-free, you just need to work for 10 years in an undeserved/rural area. We do this for other professions. Maybe we already do it for Med as well, I’m not sure - but if not we should.

Many government subsidize medical school programs have stipulations that they must serve in an underserved community for so many years and the tution is fully covered. I have a friend who graduated medical school and is now a doctor with only a few thousand dollars of student debt from community college because she…

Yes, absolutely. Most countries with significant urban/rural divides do this to some degree. It’s fucked up to think doctors should all just be allowed to concentrate where the money is. Everyone has a basic human right to healthcare.

Not only that, but many health plans start outside of the calendar year but reset their deductibles on the calendar year. So basically unless you plan your pregnancy to run completely within a calendar year, you have 2 deductibles on a single person.

This, this, this. I’m incredibly lucky to have exceptional insurance (expensive, but exceptional.) We paid our hospital bills shortly after my son was born ... but just a month ago we got a separate bill for him that had apparently been ping-ponging back and forth between the hospital and our insurer.

People don’t really realize how expensive having a kid is until they have one. I’m not talking about raising a kid, which is an entirely other deal. I’m talking about the actual process of going through pregnancy. Even with insurance.