Trump Not Using Defense Production Act So Corporations Can Quadruple Prices On Masks

[DanieRains]

And other good that are desperately needed.

People will die so some corporations can rob hospitals.

Maybe someone in "the media" could point this out.....

This is kind of important.

Having to bid $7 for a mask that used to cost less than a dollar is kinda criminal?

[dawg day]

1. "Price gouging"

In WWII, this was called war profiteering and considered a criminal act.
Then again, Dick Cheney steering Iraqi war business to his old company Halliburton kind of defenestrated that law.

[Walleye]

2. Exactly Daniel!

I’ve been pissed that nobody is pointing out the price gouging prohibition in the NDA. Somebody certainly pointed it out to trump.

[FiveGoodMen]

3. "People will die so some corporations can rob"

Capitalism in a nutshell.

[sop]

4. Florida enacted a Price Gouging law after Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

The law prohibits "price gouging" after a declared state of emergency. However, it is not considered price gouging if the seller can justify the current price by showing an increase in the price of their supplies or market trends. This needs to be investigated.

[Hoyt]

5. Finally found where this $7 BS came from. One hospital got a quote from a supplier in MEXICO

Does not appear to be a US manufacturer price-gouging, just some supplier and there are thousands of suppliers. Might as well buy on ebay. But, hey, why ruin a good story.

https://www.newsweek.com/supplier-charging-7-per-face-mask-that-typically-costs-58-cents-hospital-ceo-says-1493106

And, I agree price-gouging is kind of criminal, that's why you won't see 3M, Kimberly Clark, Honeywell, etc., doing it. Too much to lose.

[DanieRains]

8. I Heard Cuomo Said It

I didn't see any story.

They were being outbid on everything.

Safety Gear is an auction?

[Cetacea]

9. $6.50 in Brooklyn

Daniel Goldman
@danielsgoldman
I spoke earlier today with the Dir of Emergency Medicine at the largest hospital in Westchester, who told me that the hospital’s supply of PPE was so dire this week that he drove to Brooklyn and bought 1,000 masks at $6.50/mask with his own money. Where is the federal government?

[Hoyt]

10. No question feds are screwing up. But hospitals don't usually buy from small medical supply companie

s, who can markup face masks, etc. Unfortunately, many of these hospitals missed the boat in their internal disaster plans and inventories.

[UpInArms]

6. Article I read this morning

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/19/coronavirus-vaccine-medical-supplies-price-gouging/

IN RECENT WEEKS, investment bankers have pressed health care companies on the front lines of fighting the novel coronavirus, including drug firms developing experimental treatments and medical supply firms, to consider ways that they can profit from the crisis.

The media has mostly focused on individuals who have taken advantage of the market for now-scarce medical and hygiene supplies to hoard masks and hand sanitizer and resell them at higher prices. But the largest voices in the health care industry stand to gain from billions of dollars in emergency spending on the pandemic, as do the bankers and investors who invest in health care companies.

Over the past few weeks, investment bankers have been candid on investor calls and during health care conferences about the opportunity to raise drug prices. In some cases, bankers received sharp rebukes from health care executives; in others, executives joked about using the attention on Covid-19 to dodge public pressure on the opioid crisis.

... snip ...

Steven Valiquette, a managing director at Barclays Investment Bank, last week peppered executives from Cardinal Health, a health care distributor of N95 masks, ventilators and pharmaceuticals, on whether the company would raise prices on a range of supplies.

Valiquette asked repeatedly about potential price increases on a variety of products. Could the company, he asked, “offset some of the risk of volume shortages” on the “pricing side”?

[DanieRains]

7. Profiteering Instead Of Producing Will Cost Lives

AOC

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/03/22/ocasio-cortez_president_not_using_defense_production_act_powers_to_produce_medical_supplies_will_cost_lives.html

[Hortensis]

11. That's NOT the reason. Small potatoes. But please note that a big end result

of this pandemic will be a very significant cleansing of recipients of benefits from government retirement and medical programs. Of course, people of all other ages are going to die also, but increasing automation can absorb a lot of that impact.

The sociopathic "libertarians" who've taken over the Republican Party include some with specific expertise in pandemic control, vaccine development, etc., but all are capable of understanding the many things at stake and the different results that different strategies would produce. Their collective, aware action was deceit, denial, delay and refusal for months, and that still continues amap.

As for Trump, thinking things through to any end that isn't about him is not likely. The others, like pandemic expert Sen. Richard Burr, would be very cautious about explaining to him the inevitable end results of letting loose a pandemic, which hits the elderly and chronically ill especially hard. But they can certainly advise reasons for delaying and avoiding action.

Genocide, entitlement recipient cleansing. Not penny-profiteering on protective gear.

Btw, the states working hardest to flatten their curves are, of course, almost all blue states, some red states absolutely dreadful. NOLA is predicted to be in the running for possibly topping the planet in deaths. Utah's among the most proactive, even if tragically late. Big population can pull some proactive states down and thin populations result in higher ratings on evaluations. For instance per capita healthcare spending is comparatively quite low in giant California and much higher in mostly empty red Wyoming.

This study evaluating the states was reported widely 6 days ago. More actions have of course been initiated -- or not -- since then.

https://wallethub.com/edu/most-aggressive-states-against-coronavirus/72307/