One man was charged $40 to hold his newborn baby
Can you imagine having to pay money to hold your own baby?
That's pretty much what happened to Ryan Grassley in Utah in September. After his baby was born, he was as excited as any proud father and couldn't wait to hold the infant. But later on, he received a bill charging him $39.35 for this tender moment of "skin to skin" contact.
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Grassley was tickled by the bill and decided to share it on Reddit.
The image has received nearly 5 million views on Imgur and thousands of comments on Reddit.
Much of the conversation has centered not just the $39 skin contact charge but on the other expenses — like the $3,000 price of a C-section — and really, on just American health care costs in general.
Grassley created a GoFundMe page to cover the $39.35 charge. It's surpassed its goal and raised $100 at the time of writing. On the page, he clarified that posting the bill was just for laughs.
"To be clear I wasn't complaining or trying to send people on a witch hunt for the hospital," he wrote on the page. "I posted the bill to Reddit because I thought it was funny. It has been interesting to see the shock from people around the world at the cost of medical expenses in the USA."
American health care costs are generally higher than in other developed countries, research has shown. In 2015, per capita health care spending in the U.S. was at least $2,000 more than a dozen other high income countries such as Australia and the UK, as shown by data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
But not everyone was outraged about the medical costs. Some users were just in on the joke with Grassley.
Topics Reddit
Marissa is a real-time news intern at the LA office. She has a bachelor's degree in political science from UC Santa Barbara and a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. She's a free spirit.
