Inflategate
By Tracy Orzel
Updated Fri April 8, 2016
This morning, Jo Ellen, the HME News sales rep, sent Liz, Theresa and I a very interesting email.
While she was decluttering her house last night in preparation for an upcoming town-wide paper shredding event, Jo came across a receipt from when she was born in the hospital.
I wasn't cheeky enough to ask her when exactly that was, but in Jo's words, “it was decades ago.”
“My mom stayed in the hospital 3 days.
The hospital room and board was $60.00
Medication was $3.65
Doctor was $50.00 to deliver”
Meanwhile, it cost Liz $5,000 (out-of-pocket) to her have baby in the hospital a little over a year-and-a-half-ago.
I used a calculator to figure out the inflation rate, and (assuming I got Jo's birth year correct) that same hospital stay would have cost this in 2016:
Hospital room and board: $590
Medication: $36
Delivery: $490
In a time when the cost of health care is skyrocketing across the board, rather than unpack this myself, I thought this might provide a little food for thought over the weekend.
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