There goes the College Fund

Well, we finally got the bill for Aidan's birth. Actually, we got two bills. The first (and of course we don't pay this amount, insurance does...more on that later) was for his birth. Wighing in at a little over $4000.00, the wife was amazed. She thought it would be more, and I said I was pretty sure that wasn't the WHOLE bill... I mean, it cost about $1000.00 to have me in 1978 (according to the meticulously kept reciepts my mother assumed I might someday, for no good reason, cherish) and I simply cannot believe that 25 years wirth of inflation only amounted to an addition of $3000. She was sure it was right. Anyway, our co-pay for that was only $5, so we got off pretty easy.

Cue delivery of second bill. It turns out that the first bill was LITERALLY for his birth-- it only included the actual delivery and nothing else. Pretty good racket-- the Dr. was only in the room about 20 min, and even given the hospital's chiunk of that he still made some nice jingle. So this second bill.....wow. I got through 2 years of college for what it cost for this kid. Including books. And probalby drinking money. Grab your whiskey glasses and raise them high-- Aidan's entry into this world came to a total of just under $40,000.00.

Yeah, you read that right. 40 grand. That's 400 Benjamins. To put it in perspective, that's $33,113 Euros. $51,119 Franks. $2,963,384 Dinari. $4,573,705 Yen. $636,400,000 Vietnamese Dongs (I had to say that). And more than the GNP of Canada multiplied by the age of the Pope. Now, we have some interesting itemized things on that bill.... for instance, under the general heading of "Medecine" there's a pretty large chunk. I knew the wife was taking a lot of Motrin, but jesus, she must have been mainlining the stuff. The best part of all this is that we only owe a total of abou $800. Well, I mean, that's not good, but get this-- despite the hospital gouging the hell out of things that cost almost nothing outside of whatever mythical realm their accountants live and crunch numbers in, our insurance company has a contract with them...and they only have to pay about $12,000. Aparently, the hospital has to in fact suck it and swallow the rest. Cool, except...well, why should they only have to pay a little more than a third of the total bill, when we would have gotten stuck with the whole mind-numbing 40 grand? I think I'm in the wrong business. They say you can't put a price on love, but thanks to Tenet and thier evil hospital management, I now know that I can be put down for love in the amount of $40,000.