Except it isn’t, if Trump mismanaged the outbreak we would be tracking worse than every other country. Instead all western countries are tracking in about the same range. For total cases we are in the upper end of the range about even with Italy just above France and Germany but below Spain. This is comparing per…

Stop trying to use hindsight in your justification. At the time that the contract expired and the GAO protest was on going there wasn’t an active pandemic or rumors of a pandemic. Bridge contracts aren’t commonly awarded for routine maintenance, even for military maintenance.

Again if this stockpile was enough for previous administrations because all previous outbreaks never had severe ventilators shortages. Is Trump supposed to be a psychic and able to see that in 2020 there would be a completely new outbreak that requires increasing the stockpile at least ten fold?

A needed service that qualifies for a bridge contract are ones were any interruption would result in negative consequences. Typically those are done for IT services, food services, or anything else where the services need to done at that moment of time. Routine maintence contracts don’t always get bridge contracts. No…

Like I said I blame the Trump administration in part, along with all the previous administrations since 2002.

In early September when the contract was awarded and protest was filed, it wasn’t seen as a needed service, as no one foresaw that there would be a pandemic in early 2020. I can’t find the protest, but considering that work started in January chances are that the GAO protest was concluded in early January at the…

And I don’t think previous administrations stockpiled enough. And I do think that Trump should’ve also increased the stockpile, but he was following the same levels other administrations used. As such I put this current ventilator and PPE on ALL administrations since 2002. OTOH if Trump doesn’t increase the stockpile…

If Trump had used his wartime powers and invoked the DPA before March, he likely would’ve been impeached and I mean for real even the Republicans might’ve voted for it.

Now private health insurance is even more expensive and covers less.

So we shouldn’t learn from other countries that dealt with these diseases? We should wait until there are critical shortages that cause people to die before we consider stockpiling supplies that were shown to be needed?

Well we’re done here, I showed how the normal legal process of contracting couldn’t have been done sooner because of LEGALITY. And yet you keep up bringing the same damn argument over and over. Then you take me out of context claiming that I am absolving him for everything, including things I’ve actually criticized…

Other administrations didn’t have ventilator shortages because the disease never reach the US in any significant amounts. But in the regions affected by SARS and MERS there certainly were shortages, and we should’ve learned from that and increased our stockpile.

So he was supposed to use his wartime powers in early January to override contracting requirements when the first case of COVID-19 wasn’t identified in the US until the 20th? When the Democrats were screaming that it was an overreaction and racist to ban travel from China on the 29th? Really? Really?

I disagree, and think we need to reconsider our pandemic response from top to bottom. Including how we analyze diseases that have the potential to be pandemics even if they are contained before they become a pandemic.

So because SARS and MERS didn’t have a ventilator shortage (which they did it simply wasn’t severe like this one), so we can excuse prior administrations from not stockpiling ventilators. But Trump is wrong for not stockpiling ventilators for this pandemic. Even though you said that the we can’t blame the previous…

You obviously have no clue about how federal contracting works. You seem to think this is like a business contract dispute, it isn’t.

I disagree, unless you were on COBRA before ACA you don’t realize how much health insurance costs have sky rocketed. Before ACA I went on COBRA, I had an 80/20 plan with a $1,300 out of pocket max, it cost me about $400 a month (I seem to remember it being $422). Now, at least as of 2020 enrollment period, any plan…

Administrations is ignoring the potential of a pandemic falls on every administration since 2002. Ventilators were used and were in short supply for both SARS and MERS but both outbreaks were contained quickly before they got out of control. And any plans for dealing with a SARS like outbreak would have dealt with…

Contract dispute is the fault of the Trump administration how? Virtually every federal government contract award is disputed as it costs the disputer almost nothing but the gain if the dispute is upheld is enormous (namely that they have a second chance to try to win the contract), and law requires that all disputes…

And make it easier for the insurance industry to blame their losses on Congress and thus seek a bailout? No, I think at best we should make it more well known that people who lost their coverage within the last 60 days can qualify to enroll by providing documentation.