A Kaiser Foundation study claims to show how awful Health Saving Account plans are for women who experience pregnancy and child birth.  It focuses only on the extra out-of-pocket costs HSA plan members face, while completely ignoring the premium savings from choosing such plans.  (If you have an endowed foundation and don't have to compete for funds, I suppose you can get away with this stuff.)

According to Kaiser, an uncomplicated pregnancy by vaginal delivery costs $9,660 in Maryland.  A C-section costs $12,453.  If a lot of things go wrong, the cost is $287,453.  The researchers calculate the out-of-pocket costs in those cases for different types of health insurance plans.

Surely the interesting question is not, "What is the patient's share of the bill?" but rather, "Why is the bill so high in the first place?" Continue reading »