Quote:
Originally Posted by barry12345
Total bill for all was 171.00. This was in 1953. The absolute certainty is with what I think the bill would be today has to be many magnatudes higher. A thirty fold increase would only make it less than 6,000.00.
|
For this to have any meaning, it needs to be converted to 2014 money. Being this is Canada money, my posted inflation calculator won't work. CA has to have something similar somewhere.
Quote:
Originally Posted by barry12345
My understanding it is around 7 to 8k to deliver a baby today. At least that is the price in Canada if for some reason like being a foreign national you are not covered by the health care system.
|
A good chunk of that cost is to cover jackpot (malpractice) insurance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by barry12345
Although medicine is much advanced today if it was say an appendix operation back then. The only differance I can think of is the hospital stay would be much less today on average. Also the operation may be done with even a much less invasive cut.
|
There is a lot of less visible technology that allows for shorter stays and less invasive surgery. This comes at a cost not related to inflation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by barry12345
My guess wages have not risen that high by some margin even yet. So in general health care may have seriously outstripped the inflation index since 1953. Incidentally the operation was 17.00 and was included in the 171.00.
These costs almost seem insane today. I was not working in 1953 so I have no ideal what the wages were. I know the family home was purchased just before then for 6,000 dollars and today it would have a market value of around 500k. The interm 60 years have been very expensive inflationary wise ones in many important sectors.
|
Property does not always track inflation so that is a poor comparison.
Quote:
Originally Posted by barry12345
A comparison today is our cable, phone and internet service cost more per month. I paid less than half this for our first homes mortgage payment amortized over ten years. When I was making around two hundred a week.
|
This isn't a direct comparason since cable didn't exist / was rare in 53 and Al Gore had not yet inverted the internet. The cost of long distance phone calls has dropped dramatically however.
Quote:
Originally Posted by barry12345
We Canadians did not have universal health care then. So if I remember it was payments of 60.00 every three months for hospitalization and about the same amount to cover doctors. There where no co pays either. This was for the wife and two kids and myself at the time. It also was 100 percent coverage for everything.
|
I'm thinking it was 100% of not a lot of medical technology so costs were lower allowing for everything to be covered. In the old days there was a lot of " we've done all we can" that limited costs because the tech just didn't exist. This also self limited future insurance claims.