Compare Hospital Costs

Anna Mathews in Tallying the Cost to Bring Baby Home (WSJ) writes on the high cost of her hospitalization during the birth of her child. The article provides a link to sites that let you compare hospital costs at ConsumerHealthRatings.com. You should check out these relative costs before a planned hospital stay.

Anna had a maximum out-of-pocket charge of $2,000 under her health insurance policy. You might think, as she did,  that this would limit your expenses for a delivery to $2,000. However, the cap is for each patient. Since the baby was also a patient the cap was actually $4,000.