Ventilator Deal – level 3
22-04-2020 07:00
Years ago, a Dutch company reportedly promised the US government a stockpile of cheap, portable, and easy-to-use ventilators for pandemics worth millions of dollars.
However, journalists found out that these ventilators never came. Now, the two parties have agreed to a new deal that is charging four times the price of new ventilators, and the US Congress wants to know why.
The Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy addressed its concerns to the company Philips and cited information dating back to 2014, when the Department of Health and Human Services and Philips agreed to a $13.8 million contract to make ventilators for the National Strategic Stockpile.
Philips never actually made the ventilators, and the company made a commercial version of the ventilator, which is sold overseas at a much higher price.
Difficult words: stockpile (a large stock of goods that is used at a time of emergency), portable (something that can be easily carried or moved), cite (to refer to something as evidence for an argument or statement).
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