It's no secret that going to a hospital in the US often means being left with a humungous medical bill, something a new mom has found out the hard way after sharing the obscene cost she was charged following the birth of her baby daughter Kimmery.
Jenny - who runs a family YouTube channel with her husband Josh that boasts over 150,000 subscribers - shared a video to the pair's 2.2 million TikTok followers of herself reading aloud to her husband the figures on their latest medical bill.
"We got the hospital bills quickly," Jenny says to Josh, who is cradling their newborn baby in his arms. "The bill is about $17,253," she says, much to the new dad's shock.
"What?" he says. "You said that a little fast."
Jenny then replies, repeating the exorbitant amount, before breaking down the costs for their short hospital stay. The hospital room she gave birth in cost over $3,600, despite the couple only staying in the hospital for 24 hours. "The food was $176.70 and the skin-to-skin that you had with Kimmery was $4,000, the skin-to-skin for me was free," Jenny says, and Josh is clearly shocked.
"How is pizza $176? And how can they charge me for laying my own daughter on my own chest?", Josh tells her.
Jenny then concludes the video by telling her husband that they have 30 days to set up a payment plan to begin making payments for the bill.
TikTok users flooded the comments section to express their shock after viewing the video, which has been liked over two million times and been viewed by a whopping 11 million users.
"Is that for real?! They charge for skin to skin?!" one person commented, voicing the opinions of many others.
"Wait a minute, why will they charge him for his skin with his daughter and food? I will buy my food and wait till my hus get home to do skin to skin [sic]," another comment read.
Several users from across the globe even commented on the stark differences between the US healthcare system and their own home country, with one Australian woman writing: "Australia gov pays you to have a baby [...] and zero hospital bill! Skin to skin is free for the dads too [...]."
Another person from Canada chimed in: "Me in Canada having a private room with an epidural and two days in hospital with a total of $0 [...]."
While a British user detailed how different it is to give birth on the UK's National Health Service, adding: "It is cheaper for you to fly to the UK and pay to have your child on the nhs here. You also have a better survival rate!"
One person even stated that the couple might as well have just taken everything they could get their hands on at the hospital, commenting: "And this is why I take EVERYTHING I TOUCH…. Because they charged me anyway and will just throw it away. I know. I work at a hospital."
Well, after all that, I'm sure many viewers will maybe want to think twice about having kids!
