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The U.S. tried to build a new fleet of ventilators

nytimes.com

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Re: The U.S. tried to build a new fleet of ventilators

#11

Post by fyfy18 »

pdonis wrote: post #4
m0xte wrote: post #2

I’ve always said that governments should use our tax money to design and validate key health and infrastructure components and only outsource manufacturing and only to local businesses. Governments are so utterly broken and inefficient that they can’t do it. However even if they produced a design now we have supply chain problems globally. Edit: I seem to have stirred up capitalist defence here. To clarify: The gover…

> Governments are so utterly broken and inefficient that they can’t do it. Exactly. Which means we should not be depending on governments to do it. This is exactly the sort of thing that private startup companies should be doing, without trying to involve the government's bloated and inefficient bureaucracy. > even if they produced a design now we have supply chain problems globally For this particular crisis, yes. B…

Wait... isn't that exactly what the article says they tried to do?

Re: The U.S. tried to build a new fleet of ventilators

#12

Post by Dobbs »

m0xte wrote: post #2

I’ve always said that governments should use our tax money to design and validate key health and infrastructure components and only outsource manufacturing and only to local businesses. Governments are so utterly broken and inefficient that they can’t do it. However even if they produced a design now we have supply chain problems globally. Edit: I seem to have stirred up capitalist defence here. To clarify: The gover…

> Governments are so utterly broken and inefficient that they can’t do it.

Mostly when your entire platform is that governments are broken so you do your utmost to make them broken to prove your point. All governments have issues, but there are many that aren't "broken" like the US, and more and more so the UK.

Re: The U.S. tried to build a new fleet of ventilators

#14

Post by agrenader »

"Companies submitted bids for the Project Aura job. The research agency ... chose Newport Medical Instruments, a small outfit in Costa Mesa, Calif"

This is the problem. Instead of allowing several companies to compete for a large order of new ventilators, the $ were given to one company to be spend on design not on the product.

Re: The U.S. tried to build a new fleet of ventilators

#15

Post by onetimemanytime »

pdonis wrote: post #4
m0xte wrote: post #2

I’ve always said that governments should use our tax money to design and validate key health and infrastructure components and only outsource manufacturing and only to local businesses. Governments are so utterly broken and inefficient that they can’t do it. However even if they produced a design now we have supply chain problems globally. Edit: I seem to have stirred up capitalist defence here. To clarify: The gover…

> Governments are so utterly broken and inefficient that they can’t do it. Exactly. Which means we should not be depending on governments to do it. This is exactly the sort of thing that private startup companies should be doing, without trying to involve the government's bloated and inefficient bureaucracy. > even if they produced a design now we have supply chain problems globally For this particular crisis, yes. B…

Why should hospital X buy 100 ventilators...just in case, unless the gov made them do it?

Re: The U.S. tried to build a new fleet of ventilators

#16

Post by maxerickson »

pdonis wrote: post #5
maxerickson wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how that project would have gone had the design been the deliverable instead of ventilators. It wouldn't necessarily have been trivial for another company to pick the design up and produce it, but it would have been possible.

> I wonder how that project would have gone had the design been the deliverable instead of ventilators. The big company that bought the small one would simply have claimed that the design was their intellectual property and nobody else could build it.

Yes, that's one thing contracts are used for, to specify what you get in exchange for payments, in a durable way.

Re: The U.S. tried to build a new fleet of ventilators

#18

Post by pdonis »

maxerickson wrote: post #16
pdonis wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder how that project would have gone had the design been the deliverable instead of ventilators. The big company that bought the small one would simply have claimed that the design was their intellectual property and nobody else could build it.

Yes, that's one thing contracts are used for, to specify what you get in exchange for payments, in a durable way.

But the government agreed to cancel the contract at the big company's request. I don't see how the deliverable being the design instead of the ventilator itself would have changed that.

Re: The U.S. tried to build a new fleet of ventilators

#19

Post by blunte »

pdonis wrote: post #4
m0xte wrote: post #2

I’ve always said that governments should use our tax money to design and validate key health and infrastructure components and only outsource manufacturing and only to local businesses. Governments are so utterly broken and inefficient that they can’t do it. However even if they produced a design now we have supply chain problems globally. Edit: I seem to have stirred up capitalist defence here. To clarify: The gover…

> Governments are so utterly broken and inefficient that they can’t do it. Exactly. Which means we should not be depending on governments to do it. This is exactly the sort of thing that private startup companies should be doing, without trying to involve the government's bloated and inefficient bureaucracy. > even if they produced a design now we have supply chain problems globally For this particular crisis, yes. B…

It was already a small private company doing the contract. Another bigger company (that was publicly traded and therefore operating with shareholder profit as the primary if only concern) came along and bought the smaller private company. This happens to start-ups all the time.

What does this have to do with "government's bloated and inefficient bureaucracy"? The only government failure I see in this story is that they allowed the sale of the small company to the big one, or that they allowed the big company to get out of the contract.

Re: The U.S. tried to build a new fleet of ventilators

#20

Post by appleshore »

I always criticized the idea that “radical technology could exist but the competition buys it up” as a naive conspiracy theory.

It’s pretty remarkable that the government paid for this but somehow the international medical corporation can swoop in, buy the competitor who is threatening their margins, and void the contract.

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