Comments on: Why Does Everything Used in U.S. Hospitals Have to be Disposable? http://yesthereissuchathingasastupidquestion.com/2009/12/03/why-does-everything-used-in-u-s-hospitals-have-to-be-disposable/ Sat, 17 Mar 2012 10:18:50 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Kate Sedgwick http://yesthereissuchathingasastupidquestion.com/2009/12/03/why-does-everything-used-in-u-s-hospitals-have-to-be-disposable/#comment-62 Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:35:40 +0000 http://yesthereissuchathingasastupidquestion.wordpress.com/?p=168#comment-62 Thanks for the comment, JoAnna. I like your mom’s style!

I’m sure part of it is practical to prevent from being sued, but another part is passing the cost on to the consumer. If you can charge sometimes as much as 50X the cost of an item, why should you waste human resources and money having people clean things that can be bought and thrown away?

]]> By: JoAnna http://yesthereissuchathingasastupidquestion.com/2009/12/03/why-does-everything-used-in-u-s-hospitals-have-to-be-disposable/#comment-61 Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:04:45 +0000 http://yesthereissuchathingasastupidquestion.wordpress.com/?p=168#comment-61 You bring up some really great points here. I’ve always thought medical facilities were super wasteful of stuff, but maybe you have to be when you live in such a sue-crazy country.

I’ll never forget this time my mom was in the hospital and she had my sister “sneak” aspirin in to her because she didn’t want to pay $45 a pill just to get rid of a headache. And she always says she’ll pass on the band-aids too, because they probably cost an arm and a leg as well, just like you said.

The overhead at medical facilities is just way too high, and until this issue is addressed, the price of healthcare probably won’t drop anytime soon.

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