A Year After Giving Birth, Riley Gaines Is Still Getting Unexplained Bills From Different Medical Groups Every Week — She’s Done Being Quiet About It

Riley Gaines, a former competitive swimmer and conservative commentator, shared a video on X describing months of unexplained hospital bills following her delivery in September 2025.

The first video Gaines shared on April 28, 2026, had received 13.6 million views as of publication. The video begins with her saying that she gave birth to a “perfect little angel” in September 2025. She says that it is almost a year since she delivered and she has been getting bills from the hospital nearly every single week. 

The first bill she showed was for $2,000, described only as "vaginal birth." “The service description literally just says vaginal birth,” she said. Then she showed another bill of $1261 and the description said nothing. Then there was another bill of $336 and the description says subsequent hospital care. She asks, “what does that even mean?” 

In the video Gaines posted on September 24, 2026, she gave an update on this situation. “Ok! Here’s the update, there is none,” she says. “It has been a year since the delivery and the subsequent hospital stay and we are still getting, random, unexplained, unitemised bills from various different medical groups sent to our house every single week.”

Gaines said the bills were not itemized and came from various medical groups including pediatrics. Then she showed another bill of $2,021 and the first sentence on it was written that ‘it is not a bill’. 

She asked the viewers, “Are you’ll as confused as I am?” Then she spoke about a hearing screening which the hospital claimed that Gaines had to get done before getting discharged.

She said she had initially declined the hearing screening but agreed to it after being told she could not be discharged without it — a requirement she said she later learned was false. 

“You call these medical groups or you call the insurance company and you are on hold for hours. Finally when you get past the automated thing on the other side of the phone, you’re just told that they’ll get back to you in like 90 days.” 

She concluded by saying that she would continue pushing such videos on her platform and keep updating people. The second video had received 2.3 million views, 17,000 likes and 1,800 comments as of publication. 

One user commented, “That’s what they do!  I had surgery on my back and paid for everything in advance.  FULL PRICE!  And I still got bills from a few of the entities!!!” Another user wrote, “It’s Health Business not Health Care and it’s the most poorly run businessof them all.”

The Daily Dot was unable to independently verify the specific bill amounts shown in Gaines' videos, the hospital's policies regarding the hearing screening, or whether the billing practices described violate any applicable laws or regulations. The details above reflect the accounts shared by Riley Gaines on X on April 28, 2026, and September 24, 2026. Gaines' views on healthcare and other political topics are her own and do not reflect those of The Daily Dot. Readers experiencing similar billing concerns may wish to contact their state insurance commissioner or a patient advocate.