Reddit user posts photo showing that the US Health System is in the gutter

Nov 22, 2013 21:36 GMT  ·  By

A Reddit user under the name of Moby323 posted a photo from the hospital he works in starting a raging conversation about healthcare in the US. The photo showed a small metal basket used for processing tissue specimens that, according to the hospital worker, costs $700.

The very upset user bashes about healthcare in today's hospitals and about the fact that hospital-mandated suppliers charge $700 (€517) for a piece of metal that normally cost $15 (€11) tops. As expected, everyone is outraged with the kind of system that makes medical care inaccessible instead of helping people.

With these extraordinary prices come extraordinary delivery periods as well, like two weeks of waiting for surgical gloves. No wonder the discussion sparked more than 500 comments and 3,200 points in just a few hours.

The most frustrating thing of them all is the fact that employees have no say in any of these matters, even if they are the ones who deal with the lack of supplies or bad quality merchandise. The system works in such a way that hospitals are forced to make purchases just from vendors approved by special commissions prior to the sale.

Americans have started to become more aware of their healthcare system's problems lately, in November 2013, 19% of Americans mentioning poor healthcare or high costs of healthcare as a pressing problem compared to the 10% from September 2013, according to a Gallup poll. The only problem more pressing than the healthcare system at the moment in the US is Americans Dissatisfaction with the government.