# I think I just realized the real reason healthcare is so expensive **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 4, 2014, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386 "2014-10-04T16:10:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/1 "2014-10-04T16:10:43Z")
My father works in the sterilization room in a hospital. He is always bringing back piles of batteries that the hospital was going to throw out, but were never used. There is also enormous amounts of disposable equipment; even stethoscopes are thrown away after one use. Every day he has to throw out thousands of things that have absolutley nothing wrong with them, and quite a few have never even been used. Every debate on the cost of healthcare focuses on insurance negotiations and patients who can’t pay the bill, but everyone misses the fact that millions of dollars worth of supplies are just thrown in the trash every day. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/2 "2014-10-04T16:25:40Z")
Of course - there’s enormous waste. But, it’s still cheaper than a lawsuit. (I remember a story that a Dr. from Doctors without borders told about a medical drill bit that he has been using and sterilizing for years - in the US, they are throw away after one use.) ---
**Author:** ![Walton\_Firm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/45deac/32.png) [@Walton\_Firm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walton_Firm)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/3 "2014-10-04T17:28:18Z")
Isn’t that what autoclaves are for? ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/4 "2014-10-04T18:26:01Z")
Disposable stethoscopes are used for rooms with patients who have diseases like MRSA, C-Dif and Ebola. Do you want those reused? ---
**Author:** ![papergirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/aca169/32.png) [@papergirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/papergirl)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/5 "2014-10-05T00:35:47Z")
When I worked in surgery, everyone took home bags of AA batteries. I mean bags and bags and bags of them. After I quit I didn’t run out of batteries for a couple of years, and that was with several kids and their various devices at home. I snagged quite a few tubes of antibacterial gels and tubes of Dermabond, too. They come in the surgery kits and it all goes in the trash. There is a lot of unfortunate waste but I think it would take a large and concerted group effort to move toward a less wasteful model. I suspect surgical staff would be resistant to the amount of relearning of habits and time management that would be necessary to change. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/6 "2014-10-05T01:27:13Z")
> [@USCDiver](#): > > Disposable stethoscopes are used for rooms with patients who have diseases like MRSA, C-Dif and Ebola. Do you want those reused? Can those diseases survive an autoclave? ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/7 "2014-10-05T01:38:42Z")
I noticed years ago the changes in what they used for checking patients temperature. From the original oral thermometers (mercury) that could be sterilized & reused for many years, then oral ones using a cover that is discarded after one use. That seemed to me a like quite a waste. Surely they could come up with something that could be re-used. (My dentist uses metal instruments that are more invasive than a thermometer, yet they are sterilized and used again.) I also think some of this is related to the fact that the hospital employees don’t even know what the costs are for these supplies. Last year I was in the hospital for a few days, and when I was leaving the nurse mentioned to me that the pre-filled insulin pen that they had been using for me would be thrown away, even though it was still nearly full. So I asked if I could take it home with me – it was identical to the ones I used every day. He checked that I had a valid prescription for it, and then said OK. I said I hated to see it thrown away, given how expensive they were. So he asked what they cost, and was astonished when I told him the price. He said they threw away some of those nearly every day! I think if the nurses in the hospital or the doctors knew what the expense was for some of these items, the system might be changed a bit. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/8 "2014-10-05T01:49:25Z")
This sort of waste is not “the real reason”, it is one of the many bad symptoms of the massively inefficient, fragmented, and profit-driven way in which American healthcare is organized. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Holdsworth\_Effect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/848f3c/32.png) [@The\_Holdsworth\_Effect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Holdsworth_Effect)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/9 "2014-10-05T03:48:10Z")
I empathize. When I started working in hospitals (shortly after the Battle of Hastings) chest tubes were rubber (and sterilized and reused) and went to a pair of lovely tall glass jars with three hole rubber stoppers. They were subject to breakage…and we peons were forever salvaging the stoppers and tubing. I was always pulling useful things out of the trash that the surgeons flung. Took em home and boiled them. IVs came in glass bottles, too, and you could make a nifty vase out of a 250cc one. Nowadays, when I use a suture removal kit, I give the patient the scissors and forceps (they are “disposable” but are still very useful. We do autoclave a lot of stuff still, but there is an astounding amount of waste based on infection control and cost/benefit ratio of reusables. Sigh. The Pilgrim and German genes despise waste. I still take home expired topical and local anesthetic meds for veterinary use, when they are not legally useful for human medicine. A little lidocaine gel is very nice when I clean my dog’s ears! ---
**Author:** ![Fluffy\_PickleSniffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/77aa72/32.png) [@Fluffy\_PickleSniffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fluffy_PickleSniffer)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/10 "2014-10-05T11:11:55Z")
Why would they throw away perfectly good batteries? Those don’t come into contact with people that would be a hazard? ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/11 "2014-10-05T11:43:17Z")
Dutch hospitals have experimented with putting price tags on equipment and supplies. It did reduce costs, yes. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/12 "2014-10-05T12:28:43Z")
> [@Fluffy\_PickleSniffer](#): > > Why would they throw away perfectly good batteries? Those don’t come into contact with people that would be a hazard? Perhaps they exceeded an arbitrary “use by” date? Don’t want a surgical gismo shutting down mid-operation, do we? ---
**Author:** ![Fluffy\_PickleSniffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/77aa72/32.png) [@Fluffy\_PickleSniffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fluffy_PickleSniffer)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/13 "2014-10-05T12:41:25Z")
Crazy ☹ Maybe they should sell the batteries at a discount to the public… they’d make some money back and the average Joe would get cheaper batteries. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/14 "2014-10-05T12:50:18Z")
> [@Fluffy\_PickleSniffer](#): > > Crazy ☹ > Maybe they should sell the batteries at a discount to the public… they’d make some money back and the average Joe would get cheaper batteries. There’s a good chance they’re a proprietary battery pack of some kind. You don’t just run down to the hardware store for 5,000 AA batteries. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/15 "2014-10-05T14:47:35Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Originally Posted by\*\* USCDiver\*\* > > Disposable stethoscopes are used for rooms with patients who have diseases like MRSA, C-Dif and Ebola. Do you want those reused? > > Can those diseases survive an autoclave? Do you want to risk any of the above? I don’t. Also, I imagine the risk mitigation wonks at the hospital would have massive coronaries at the idea. Dr. Almost-Bunny had a case of C. Diff once (and he was very careful when handling his patients). It involved him in the hospital, then getting IV antibiotics from a visiting nurse for the better part of a month. ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/16 "2014-10-05T15:09:05Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Can those diseases survive an autoclave? Probably not… But neither can the rubber stethoscope. Not everything can be tossed into an autoclave and in many cases buying cheaper disposable instruments (presumably packaged in Asia) is more cost effective than paying people to autoclave and repackage them on site. Case in point, the instruments in the kits I use for laceration repair are cheap and disposable even though they could theoretically be autoclaved. They aren’t manufactured nearly to the quality of true OR instruments but it doesn’t matter to us in the ER. The batteries on the other hand are stupid. I remember the battery packs in the pulse irrigator device used in the OR having 10-12 regular old AA Duracell batteries that were thrown out after every procedure in which it was used. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/17 "2014-10-05T15:12:51Z")
Re: Batteries. As **running coach** said, they’re probably ‘NOT LABELED FOR RESALE’. But couldn’t they be donated? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/18 "2014-10-05T16:04:27Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Re: Batteries. As **running coach** said, they’re probably ‘NOT LABELED FOR RESALE’. But couldn’t they be donated? They are probably considered “medical waste” so, no. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/19 "2014-10-05T19:14:22Z")
[QUOTE=USCDiver] The batteries on the other hand are stupid. I remember the battery packs in the pulse irrigator device used in the OR having 10-12 regular old AA Duracell batteries that were thrown out after every procedure in which it was used. [/QUOTE] Like the infinitesimal chance of something surviving a run through the autoclave on a seven dollar stethoscope or in the crevices of a three dollar pair of forceps, are you willing to assume the risk of that battery pack running down in the middle of a procedure just to save ten bucks? More to the point, how expensive is the administrative overhead in tracking, recording, testing and certifying the number of times and length of times a battery pack has been used vs just replacing the batteries after each use and being sure that they’re able to run the device when needed? Discarding a dozen consumer-grade batteries might be far cheaper. ---
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386/20 "2014-10-05T19:24:15Z")
Why not use rechargeable batteries then? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-just-realized-the-real-reason-healthcare-is-so-expensive/700386.md?page=2)