White House Backs Off Ventilator Announcement

[RandySF]

“The White House had been preparing on Wednesday to announce amid an escalating pandemic that a joint venture between General Motors and Ventec Life Systems would begin producing as many as 80,000 desperately needed ventilators when word suddenly came down that the announcement was off,” the New York Times reports.

“The decision to cancel the announcement, according to government officials, came after the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it needed more time to assess whether the estimated cost was prohibitive — more than $1 billion.”


https://politicalwire.com/2020/03/26/white-house-backs-off-ventilator-announcement/

[marble falls]

1. Not saying a crash program isn't needed, but even Ford takes time to retool a line.

Its strange they'd go to Ford. They don't make things anything like ventilators.

It seems that because there's many parts that can 3-d printed, why aren't we using the public making these while who-ever sources injection molding and mechanical components and rooling for metal parts.

[Bucky]

5. We could do it for a shitload less if Trump'd use the Defence Prod'n Act

Profit over peoples' lives once again

[Hermit-The-Prog]

9. How about really cheap ...

https://med.umn.edu/covid19Ventilator

[dweller]

2. more

major fail

💩

✌🏼

[Midnightwalk]

3. So ugly

Assume each ventilator saves a life

80k lives for 1 billion is what 12k per life?

If each saved 2 that’s 6k per life

But we spend 2 trillion to push stocks back up.

At the same time trump is withholding aid to blue states.

This is going to get very ugly.

[hedda_foil]

4. 12k strikes me as a reasonable price for a ventilator.

[Midnightwalk]

6. Yeah just to make it more disgusting

12k for a life is peanuts. It doesn’t even seem like gouging for a ventilator.

What have his golf trips cost? Too lazy to look but something like 300 million. Enough to pay for 26000 or so ventilators.

The families of the dead should remember this grisly arithmetic.

[krawhitham]

7. very reasonable, 1/2 price

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/18/ventilator-shortage-hospital-icu-coronavirus/

Ventilators range from $25,000 for a basic model to $50,000 for a machine used in the most advanced intensive care units.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/18/ventilator-shortage-hospital-icu-coronavirus/

[EndlessWire]

8. What manner of sh*t is this?

I keep imagining that people throw the bodies of their loved ones over the WH fence.

Trump is a monster. He owns this.