$13 * 266 days = $3,458.
Financial cost of a Sky Sport package over the same term: $731.
Financial cost of the best obstetrician team in Christchurch: you'll have to ask them, but Ira cost $2k in 2008 and Eleanor cost $2500 in 2010.
Cost of having a midwife-only birth under New Zealand midwife training standards: potentially unfathomable.
If you or somebody you care about is pregnant, recommend a shared-care option with a good obstetrician. It is damned cheap. One person in the extended family quitting smoking for the duration pays for the best obstetrician in town. Four friends giving up Sky for the duration works too. Even among the poorest deciles, is there really nobody who cares enough about an expecting mother to give up smoking for long enough to cover an obstetrician's fees?
I expect the main problem is that, in the low decile groups, folks tend to figure that whatever the government gives them must be good enough. It really isn't. High social capital rich folks know to call around immediately on finding out they're pregnant (or even earlier) and snap up the midwives with proper nurse's training. Low-decile folks wait 'till they're several months along and take what's left, not knowing that there are differences in qualifications among midwives and that the bottom tail of the distribution is abysmal.
Update: @harvestbird gives an updated price schedule:
@EricCrampton It's $3K+ GST now for that team but, for the reasons you articulate, worth every cent.
— Megan Clayton (@harvestbird) May 23, 2012
