[BostonCard]

Apparently we tried the "cheap ventilator" route before.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/busin...rtage.html

The government shouldn't have let Covidien off the hook.  The ventilator contract was something that they should have known about when they did due diligence to acquire Newport, and if Newport was saddled with a bad contract with BARDA, maybe Covidien should have offered less.  Of course it is entirely possible that Covidien acquired Newport specifically so it wouldn't fulfill the contract:

Government officials and executives at rival ventilator companies said they suspected that Covidien had acquired Newport to prevent it from building a cheaper product that would undermine Covidien’s profits from its existing ventilator business.

BC

[BostonCard]

Apparently we tried the "cheap ventilator" route before.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/busin...rtage.html

The government shouldn't have let Covidien off the hook.  The ventilator contract was something that they should have known about when they did due diligence to acquire Newport, and if Newport was saddled with a bad contract with BARDA, maybe Covidien should have offered less.  Of course it is entirely possible that Covidien acquired Newport specifically so it wouldn't fulfill the contract:

Government officials and executives at rival ventilator companies said they suspected that Covidien had acquired Newport to prevent it from building a cheaper product that would undermine Covidien’s profits from its existing ventilator business.

BC