UK's royal baby delivery costs less than average baby in US

The story

Amidst widespread fawning over the newest royal bundle of joy, a rather troubling fact has emerged: The cost of delivering a prince in a specialized luxury wing of a private London maternity ward was lower than the cost of an average delivery in the United States.

According to The Economist, the young prince’s privileged birth was likely to have cost about $8,900, while a comparable delivery in the United States costs $10,808 on average. And that’s without the comprehensive wine list for the new parents that was one of many perks William and Catherine enjoyed.

What’s more, American families are typically left to cover about $3,000 of that bill, while most European countries provide free maternity care.

Why it matters

This isn’t just about nationalized healthcare, though. It’s also about the fact that healthcare in the United States, in general, costs a lot more than it does anywhere else. Worse still, we perform rather poorly on many population health outcomes, despite all that extra spending.

According to recent research, prices of labor and goods, along with administrative costs, are the main drivers behind the United States’ hefty healthcare spending.

The challenge is that very few participants in the healthcare sector really know what any give procedure actually costs. In many ways, this is a data problem, and some innovative startups are trying to identify solutions that increase pricing transparency.

The ideal result would be to connect costs to actual patient outcomes, so that we can spend healthcare money in ways that actually help people.

What do you think?

Is our healthcare system fine the way it is? Should we pursue some version of nationalized healthcare? Should we work a lot harder to understand costs and outcomes in our system?