Another clip for the Decline-and-Fall files. From the WSJ, Business Paper of Record, profit-promising news about “a Fertile Niche for Lenders“:
Julie Barth’s prayers were answered when a doctor in Crystal Lake, Ill., told her in vitro fertilization might get her pregnant. But he didn’t stop there, referring her to a “fertility finance” company that lent her $5,000 at an interest rate of 7.99% to help cover the $24,000 procedure. Her daughter, Olivia, was born about a year later.
__
“You can’t put a price on a smile like that,” says Ms. Barth, 32 years old. She hopes to pay off her loan from Springstone Financial LLC, based in Southborough, Mass., by her daughter’s third birthday in 2014.
__
At a time when many traditional lenders are struggling, companies that join forces with doctors to make loans for in vitro fertilization, egg harvesting and other fertility treatments say their business is thriving.
__
One reason: Fertility-finance companies are getting a boost from the banking industry’s retrenchment. For example, credit has become tight for home-equity loans and credit cards, two ways couples often have paid for fertility treatments that often top $20,000. Mike Gilroy, Springstone’s president, says business is robust because “if the time is right” to have a baby, “people want loans even in a sluggish economy.”…
__
The loans typically are unsecured and carry interest rates of as much as 22%, more than the average credit-card rate of around 17%. The rates offered vary based on the lender’s evaluation of a patient’s credit-worthiness…
By all means, read the whole article, which could be used as a checklist of just about everything that’s wrong with America’s healthcare system. (Extra points to the WSJ for starting with a ‘human interest’ subject who got a 7.99% loan, and burying the lede that such loans “carry interest rates of as much as 22%”.) This is America, home of Cash Rules Everything Around Me, and nothing’s “priceless” unless it’s worthless…
***********
So, what’s on the agenda for the end of the weekend? Does anybody still watch the Oscars?
Egg Berry
One wonders if he got a cut of the action.
Suffern ACE
I wonder if they’re lobbying to change the rules so that those kids could be pledged as security and repossessed in event of default.
WyldPirate
Meet “Bastard the Cat”
Villago Delenda Est
The Ferengi must be destroyed. There is no other way.
CarolDuhart2
Will this be hurled at the kids later if they aren’t quite up to parent’s standards? “I borrowed the money to have you!”
Roger Moore
@Egg Berry:
I wondered the same thing. Do the doctors actually get a cut, or is it just worth their while because letting their patients finance the procedure expands their client base and lets them get away with charging more?
Persia
@Roger Moore: I assume their cut is that more people get fertility treatments. Otherwise, they might have to adopt or foster or something. Can’t have that.
Southern Beale
And this, my friends, is why we can’t have nice things like socialized medicine.
“Fertility finance?” Jesus Christ. Now I’ve heard everything.
Profit motive run amok.
Mark S.
The Oscars are tonight? Who’s favored to win?
Lojasmo
My aunt just had in vitro at 46 years of age (three previous kids, new husband) cost 24,000 but all would be refunded if no baby ensued.
I have a new cousin!
Southern Beale
In other news, me and the Mister just saw “Wanderlust.” HILARIOUS. Haven’t laughed that hard in a movie in a long, long time. See, here’s the difference between liberals and conservatives: liberals know how to laugh at themselves, but they also know how to laugh at everyone else.
Linnaeus
I’m interested in the results of the Oscars, but I’m not especially interested in watching the program.
Southern Beale
@Persia:
Certainly not! Snowflake babies ONLY! Every blastocyst, zygote and fetus is SACRED! Born children? Fuck ’em. They need to pull themselves up by those bootstraps they should have had the personal responsibility to be born with.
Southern Beale
I blogwhored this yesterday, but thought folks might be interested in seeing this … a Wilson County (TN) school board won’t let their high school start a GLBT support group because “those people” aren’t “normal.”
Fuckers.
scav
Finally a place to drop this bit of stem cell magic. Potentially unlimited snowflakes! Unlimited human eggs ‘potential’ for fertility treatment. I can’t decide if they’ll be more excited by the promise of more blastocystizens partially untethered to the uppity carriers, unhinged by the stem celly bits, or, well, there is that sort of generally random outrange/response thing I’ve given up predicting. Yee-haw for the new bubble economy!
Nutella
One interesting point to me is this: The banks, who are so important and too big to fail, aren’t doing their job of keeping commerce moving by lending money in traditional ways so new and innovative companies are jumping in to fill the need. Perhaps too innovative in this case, but it illustrates why governments shouldn’t bail out old and stodgy industries. People in the established industries just can’t think outside of their established routines so all they can do in hard times is pull back and stop doing things, rather than thinking of new ways of working.
slag
After dissing the Muppets, the Oscars are officially irrelevant this year. Do not fuck with the Frog!
Schlemizel
@Linnaeus:
I know I am weird but I am actually looking forward to Crystal. I hate award shows with a passion but will tune in and out of a couple, the Oscars are one. What amazes me is he will have 10-12 writers working with him. I know that Leno and Letterman have 2-3 times that many but assume those numbers are about right for other hosts. How can that many professionals produce such crap?
Svensker
Well, yeah, but even in Paradise (aka Canukistan), IVF isn’t covered by single payer.
The 22% interest payments — for money that the banks are getting for .5% — however, is out and out usury.
RSA
@CarolDuhart2:
Sure. But for the younger kids, it’ll be “If you don’t behave, the bank is going to come collect you.”
Steve
Is the consensus that we ought to have taxpayer-funded IVF for anyone who wants it? Or something else?
Ohio Mom
I was on jury duty about twenty years ago and the case for which I was an unchosen alternate (and so to my dismay, I did not get to hear the entire case or how it turned out) concerned a young couple who had borrowed money from a pet store — seems the store had a finance dept, just like a car dealership does — to buy a wallaby, which promptly died after two weeks. They didn’t think they should have to pay back the loan but of course the pet store thought they should. Yes, it sounds like a Monty Python skit but I swear it really happened.
Anyway, just wondering what other categories exist of places that will lend you money to pay for what it is they offer. I wouldn’t have guessed medical offices but then again, I wouldn’t have guessed anyone would want a wallaby for a pet.
rikyrah
this is something I didn’t know. good catch for finding the 22 percent buried in the story.
loan sharks for fertility.
WereBear (itouch)
@Ohio Mom: They got no freakin’ business buying a wallaby, and the store had no freakin’ business selling it. Obviously. But I’m sure you knew that.
And this is why our Galtian Overlords are less than thrilled with medical care that people don’t have to borrow at 22% interest to get.
Punchy
That $24K number is ridiculous. We did IVF last year for $14K. I know it aint the same price everywhere, but it shouldnt vary by ten large. Skeptical.
Cermet
Why would I want to watch an Oscar? Those fish get very big and require large food items. I prefer Discus – they are smart as hell and eat out of your hand. Still, they require a lot of water changes, so maybe Oscars are easier to watch …
Lojasmo
@Punchy:
Just repeating what my aunt told me. She would have no reason to lie.
Maybe her clinic is more expensive because they offer a full refund if the couple is unsuccessful. Dunno.
ETA: the cost of a hot new model car can vary at least$10k between dealerships depending on markup. (shrug)
Warren Terra
I’m very disappointed to be the first person in the thread to make a Rumpelstiltskin reference.
Ohio Mom
@WereBear (itouch): The couple made a very sad pair. They looked like they were in their early twenties, at best, and they were dressed in clothes that didn’t quite fit. If I had to guess, I’d guess they borrowed the suit and dress from older relatives — the dress was very dowdy and old-ladyish.
And because it is Cincinnati, one of the jurors raised her hand when the announcement was made if anyone had a reason they should be excused because she was the second cousin of the star witness, the vetenarian who treated the wallaby. They waved to one another as she exited.
But I digress. I only told the story because I really do wonder how much of our economy is loan-making. I remember reading years ago that GM made more from its financing activities than from actually making cars.
beergoggles
I know so many lesbians that made a trip to Mexico with a turkey baster and frozen samples that I am really surprised when I read about people shelling out big money for this. I hope she got some cunnilingus out of it because a medical tourism trip would include a vacation for less than half that price.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mark S.:
I thought we were pretty well agreed: Obama.
MrSnrub
We were told that the chances of in-vitro working were somewhere around 40% – so you’re making a $10-20k gamble on those odds.
We went with adoption, and never regretted it.
Matt
Am I the only one who finds it the “if the time is right” bit utterly bizarre? I can’t think of many times LESS right to be having a kid than when one has to *finance* the kid pre-birth. What are they gonna buy diapers with – a home equity loan?
Gretchen
@beergoggles:
The problem that your lesbian friends don’t have is that they ovulate. IVF and all that is for people who have access to sperm but nothing to meet it with. When I read that about snowflake babies upthread, I felt a little spurt of hope thinking of a young friend who doesn’t ovulate without massive hormonal intervention. She finally got pregnant with twins, but miscarried at 20 weeks. Her husband left her, unable to handle the sorrow. She has a new boyfriend, would still love to have a child, and still doesn’t ovulate. I so wish one of these technologies would work for her, and so wish that she wouldn’t be vulnerable to a charlatan charging 22% interest.
marina
Gretchen, your friend might be interested in Miracles Waiting, a nonprofit, secular site for people wishing to receive or donate frozen embryos. It’s a much, much more affordable alternative to IVF and adoption.
marina
Oops, I forgot to mention that using frozen embryos is IVF, it’s just less expensive–the major cost is in making the embryos, not transferring them. In any event, best of luck to your friend.