Ventilator Deal – level 2

22-04-2020 07:00

Journalists say that a Dutch company promised the US government a stockpile of ventilators. These ventilators were cheap, and people could use them easily. The US could use them in emergency situations, such as a pandemic.

The company Philips and the US Department of Health and Human Services agreed to a $13.8 million deal in 2014. However, journalists found out that the ventilators never came. Philips made a different type of the ventilator and sold it overseas at a much higher price.

Now, the US government and Philips agreed to a new deal. However, the price of the ventilators is four times higher than usual, and the US government wants to know why.

Difficult words: stockpile (a stock of a lot of similar things that people can use in emergency), ventilator (a machine that helps a person with breathing), pandemic (a disease that gets many people sick all over the world).

You can watch the original video in the Level 3 section.

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