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

• pdonis 7y ago
  > Why should hospital X buy 100 ventilators...just in case Well, of course. That's what we're talking about, right? Somebody has to do the long-term planning for emergencies like this one. I understand that most of us thought it was the government's job to do this long-term planning so individual facilities wouldn't have to, but this article shows that the government failed at that job. Unless we have some reason to think the government wouldn't fail next time, it seems like the only alternative is for private entities to do it.
  • neffy 7y ago
    But private entities can't do it, because the market forces them not to - those that the spend the money will be out-competed in the short term by those that don't.
    • pdonis 7y ago
      > private entities can't do it, because the market forces them not to Private entities don't have to be subject to the market. Someone like Bill Gates or Elon Musk could set up a privately owned company, not publicly traded, that would not be subject to investors' demands for consistent quarterly growth. Matter of fact, maybe that's what Bill Gates should switch his attention to from malaria. The fact is, a private individual, or a small group of them, can have a longer time horizon than the government does, and a longer time horizon is exactly what is needed for something like this.
  • onetimemanytime 7y ago
    The government failed here but they are the only ones that can really prepare. A pandemic is as much as a threat as USSR, Bin Laden was, or China is, so just as they have these billion dollar planes they should prepare for Covid like situations.