I’m Canadian. And I’m already sorry for asking an ignorant question.
I know you have to pay for hospital visits in the states. I know lower economic status can come with lower access to birth control and sex education. But then, how do they afford to give birth? Do people ever avoid hospital visits because they don’t feel like they can’t afford it?
Do hospitals put people on a payment plan? Is it possible to give birth and not pay if you don’t have the means? How does it work in the states?
How does it all work?
Again. Canadian. And sorry.
Why didn’t you have taxpayer paid (State) insurance if you were extremely poor and expecting? Is it because of the lost job and timing? If you are poor and have a family then you can spend a day at the welfare office and get public insurance.
Because we made too much (over minimum wage, dual income household). I was making $13k as a sales manager, my wife was making $8k as an assistant manager, and minimum wage was $3.35/hr or just under $7k/year back then. After taxes, we made about $1200/mo, and our rent was $650 for a single bedroom apartment. No car, we took the bus, barely had enough for food and utilities.
But we were considered way too over the “poverty line,” which was I think less than $6k/year then. We had been using birth control but when they say some form of birth control is 99% effective, the DO mean 1% failed. I have no regrets our son was born, because it turned out we couldn’t have kids later when we tried. And then later my wife died when he was 22, so if we had kids later, I would have been a widow with younger kids.
I feel awful he grew up poor with us until he was about 10, though.
Oof, yeah that’s rough. The poverty line is really low. I can relate about wishing you weren’t poor when your kid was a kid, we had the same experience. We would have been able to give him a lot more had he been born a decade later, but he still had a loving home, which is more than a lot of kids get.
I’m really sorry to hear about your wife. I can’t even imagine.