And I care because?
Seriously, my baby’s life is worth any amount of money.
I’m guessing mom was young/minority/on medicaid or some combination thereof.
And here I thought eugenics was rejected by the medical community since the 1940′s.

Very rarely does my jaw drop open in shock… this was one of those times!
I agree, this sounds like eugenics.

I.Don’t.Care.

My baby is worth everything and more to me. Sorry, I don’t think of babies as disposables and if I lose one I can always make another.

I know a good money saving tip. Fire this nurse.

I bet this was said a to a low-income mother on state insurance I don’t know about other states, but here in WI if there’s a father on the BC, they come after him for repayment. Not sure what they do if there isn’t.

OH NO she just didn’t say that. JAW DROP!

That pisses me off. It’s not like the woman KNEW her child was going to need life-saving surgery and would need to be in the NICU. I can guarantee she would prefer that her child NOT be in the NICU regardless of being on Medicaid or anything else.

And Medicaid is there to HELP mothers and babies who need help. So shut the hell up.

I was on Medicaid with my last pregnancy (my baby is now 1 month old). I didn’t intend to use it because I was planning to have a homebirth but when my husband lost his job and benefits 3 months into my pregnancy I chose to get on Medicaid “just in case.” Thank God I did, because otherwise we would be in serious debt. My homebirth turned into a hospital transfer with a medically necessary c-section because my baby did not tolerate labor well. I am thankful that I was not treated the way this mother was.

Hey, I and my baby are on Medicaid too. Not because I’m some slacker (even if I WAS would it matter???), but because I get paid CRAP to work. Maybe Miss Nursie-Poo would like to pay for the baby’s care out of her own pocket, thus sparing the state such costs?
Yeah, I didn’t think so. So shut yer yap nursie-poo.

The nurse says, “You’re costing the state a lot of money, you know!”

“Since you feel that way,” the imaginary woman in my mind replies, “then does that mean you’ll be donating your nursing services for free?”

UGH!

This is what we are constantly TOLD we are paying taxes for. Regardless of what your political views are about that situation, that IS what the money is for when you pay taxes. And regardless of your political views about it, THIS IS NOT SOMETHING THAT IS OK TO SAY to a Mother whose baby’s life hangs in the balance, and who is wondering if she will be planning a funeral next week instead of taking her baby home.

One of my pregnancies/births was paid for by Medicaid. But, I had an uncomplicated hospital birth, stayed at the hospital less than twelve hours, the whole thing cost less than $5000. I don’t recall the exact amount but I think it was closer to $2000.

We paid our taxes every year for years. One year, we happened to need assistance, so we got it. Now, we’re back to paying taxes, and not using medicaid. That’s why the program exists.

I don’t think nurses need to know how a patient is paying. That information should be on a need-to-know basis to keep stupid comments like this from being made.

Similar to what another poster said, I’m on Medicaid because my job is low paying. I work my butt off and pay taxes, so I can’t imagine putting up with someone like that. Not all people who get help are helpless!

Yes, nursie. And Medicaid is wasting its money paying “people” like you.

“Since the alternative to costing the state a lot of money would be to let the baby die, then you must be supportive of how much money the state is willing to spend on medical care for a sick baby, because you obviously wouldn’t want the baby to die, right? Right?”

Yes, and now I’m going to jail for knocking you the f*ck out.

Infuriating!!! My husband is self-employed and I am a full time college student with 4 kids. I also work part time at a job with no benefits. When I found out I was pregnant with #4 (much to my surprise) I got Medicaid because I wanted to make sure I got prenatal care and wouldn’t have otherwise. The real estate market tanked. We make about 1/3 as much as we did 5 years ago. And purchasing private health insurance in my state would cost about 1800 a month with the priveledge of paying a 5000 deductible on top of it. So I had no choice and I think I would have lost my mind if someone said this to me.

This is disturbing!

In Michigan,if the mother has health insurance but the baby won’t be able to (like in my circumstance where I am a college student and have my parents’ insurance), the family has to apply for aid AFTER the baby is born. When my son was born, he was transferred to a NICU over a half hour away. He spent two weeks there, and including the transfer and stay (not including the birth), he “cost” over three quarters of a million dollars. The first thing the NICU did was put me in touch with the social worker, whose JOB includes helping parents with finding state and federal aid to assist with this unanticipated and highly difficult additional cost. We filled out the paperwork sitting next to him in his bassinet when he was a week old, and they called us the next day to let us know they had pushed it through, and they hoped that easing this huge financial burden would help.

Why can’t more NICUs be like my son’s was? Its like other posters said, the other option is the child dying. Would the nurse want THAT blood on her hands? Also, I will happily pay my taxes the rest of my life, knowing that it goes to families like this one (and my own, when we needed it) whose children need this aid in order to live. I couldn’t spend my money in a better way, and I’ll be damned if this nurse could give an example either.

Okay, nursie poo, would you rather my kid have died? I’m sorry, but what if your child just got finished with life saving surgery and *I* told you that your child’s LIFE was a burden of the state?

On behalf of taxpayers, I support my state spending money this way. Always.

Holy fricking crap. I would have cost the state even more money, for my trial when I jumped her and beat her to a pulp. I heard something similar to that when my son was a baby. My husband was in the military, and he decided to stay in a little longer than he’d planned, long enough to finish our child’s cleft palate care. HE told this to one of his friends and he heard nothing but how he was milking the military for charity. >_< Every day he served, he earned the benefits for his family. It was complete bullcrap.

HOW.DARE.SHE. I’ve posted this before, and I’ll post it again. What can you say to someone like that except “F*** you.”

I’m pretty sure this nurse costs the state a lot of money too, if she’s not working in a private hospital.

Excuse my ignorance, but surely a huge percentage of the money it’s costing is going to doctors and nurses? So how about reducing all med staff down to the minimum wage and no free health insurance? That should bring the bill down considerably, and this ‘caring’ nurse gets to explore the wonders of medicaid from the other side!

This is why I love my country and it’s social healthcare. EVERY baby (unless you have an unassisted home birth-and even then, the child will need medical help at some point in it’s life) costs “the state(province)” money. That’s just the way it is. But NO ONE has to go bankrupt or scramble with paperwork right after a birth.

The only thing I paid for was a portion of my ambulance ride… 90$. And I had a hospital birth (transfer from home) with a midwife (care transferred to Dr) as well as a 5 day stay (which included an insane amount of tests and iv meds) due to being septic. I also had at home nursing care (2 visits) since I needed IV meds 2 more days but asked to be home. Didn’t pay a cent for all that and I’m happy to pay taxes if it means other moms can say the same.

No one should need to stress about where the money’s going to come from for health care.

As someone who would vote against medicaid in a heartbeat this is a COMPLETELY HORRIBLE thing to say. Even *if* you actually don’t believe in medicaid (and most people who say they are against medicaid/care really just mean they are *for* rationing it) it’s still not the fault of the person who’s legally on it. They are just smart enough to take advantage of what’s availible.
Saying something like this to a patient/patient’s family should be a firing offense.

Dear Nurse,

There are many reasons to be on Medicaid and most of them have nothing to do with not working or with abusing the system. Please refrain from judging those who are on it.

Furthermore, when a patient’s baby’s life is in the balance (or at any time for that matter), making comments about costing the state money is never appropriate.

Please use your brain/mouth filter more judiciously in the future.

Sincerely,

Everyone

I dread to think how much I cost the NHS but no one cares! The only time anyone ever brought up cost to me was when I dropped my expressing set on the floor and lost 50ml. I was crying and the nurse said “Do you realise how much that stuff costs?” mock telling off to try and cheer me up.

My first baby, born in hospital without even a midwife in the room and just G&A so quite cheap but they kept me in a delivery room (bereavement suite) for three days afterwards.

My second baby I had scans weekly from 20-24 weeks, during which time I was in hospital, then three times a week from 27 weeks and a foetal heart echo. I had daily Heparin injections all the way through. She was born by crash section with GA at 31 weeks. She was in NNU for 17 days, I was in a ward for 15 days, then we went to transitional care for a week. She sees the hospital a lot and tons of medication because it’s left her with a lot of lung and bowel problems.

Third baby I had the same amount of scans although I may have had more as she was IUGR(?) She had 2 nights in NNU and a week in transitional care. I was in labour from 24 weeks when she had all the steroids and I was on a drug that costs £100 an hour. I had to be transferred half way across the country for a week, they put my partner up in the hospital and taxied us back when I was discharged. I had a lot of nights in because of it.

Fourth baby, same amount of scans and the steroids as again I was in labour for weeks and lots of stays. She was kept in for 6 weeks and I stayed in with her.

I always read these comments and try to put myself in the shoes of the person making the offensive comment. After all, we’ve all had foot-in-your-mouth moments. And maybe there was some reason the idiotic comment popped out. A valid reason. Maybe that snotty OB hasn’t slept in 26 hours. Maybe that L&D nurse is just floating from a floor where all the patients are comatose. Yes, I keep trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I’m not sure why I keep doing that.

OP, I am so sorry that someone said this to you!

Really, nurse? Oh, I’m SO sorry. If I’d realised that I’d have tried harder to have a healthy baby! How SELfish of me!

Actually, I wonder if there is more background to this? Maybe the mother had asked for something (you know, a totally unreasonable request like a glass of water or something to eat, or maybe some pain killers *eyeroll*), prompting this remark (an ‘Aren’t you already costing us enough?’ sort of thing).

Because for someone to just say this out of the blue is just so incredibly heartless and irrelevant to anything anyone should be worrying about…

My aunt and uncle are very conservative and VERY AGAINST ‘socialized medicine’ like Medicaid and Medicare and against government ‘handouts’ (which is ironic because he’s military so his salary and benefits are directly FROM the government!). Then their daughter, my cousin, had a Down syndrome baby. His multimillion dollar hospital bill was covered by Medicaid. But they’re still against welfare in general, it’s just okay for their grandson. Makes me want to scream in frustration!

I’m actually a little relieved that the OP tells us this was said by a social worker (not a nurse as the post says). When a nurse or doctor caring for a child makes a remark like this, I get nervous about the quality of that person’s care for the child. At least a social worker can’t “forget” to do a procedure or decide that the child “would be better off” or something.

(Not that a social worker shouldn’t know better than to make a remark like this, but then any human should know better.)

With all the things that our tax dollars support that I am completely against, saving a baby is not one of them.