[Goose]

There's plenty of blame to go around, large and small. How about the people in the government who let the contract lapse to maintain the ventilators in the national stockpile?

I think you might want to look into this one a bit more. The contract to maintain the national stockpile was let. One of the bidders protested. By law, at that point everything stops and the protest must be evaluated. You cannot legally put out another RFP for the same service/product until that protest is heard and decided. If the protest is deemed to have merit, a new solicitation and RFP must be issued. While this process is technically an administrative one, it amounts to a civil legal proceeding, and that process takes months. That is the government contracting process. The only way that somebody was allowed to start maintaining them was, as I understand it, the emergency declaration at the start of the epidemic.

If you don't think that is a good process, feel free to recommend revisions. Easy to do since these regulations are frequently revised, usually just making the process slower, more costly and more difficult for all involved (the contractors and the government) . Everybody wants government contracting to be absolutely fair and transparent, with no biases. At the same time they want to include preferences for selected groups. They want it to be efficient, rapid, selecting only competent vendors. They want it to select the lowest possible cost. Obviously, many of these goals are at odds with each other. No problem, they must all be met simulaneously.

[Goose]

There's plenty of blame to go around, large and small. How about the people in the government who let the contract lapse to maintain the ventilators in the national stockpile?

I think you might want to look into this one a bit more. The contract to maintain the national stockpile was let. One of the bidders protested. By law, at that point everything stops and the protest must be evaluated. You cannot legally put out another RFP for the same service/product until that protest is heard and decided. If the protest is deemed to have merit, a new solicitation and RFP must be issued. While this process is technically an administrative one, it amounts to a civil legal proceeding, and that process takes months. That is the government contracting process. The only way that somebody was allowed to start maintaining them was, as I understand it, the emergency declaration at the start of the epidemic.

If you don't think that is a good process, feel free to recommend revisions. Easy to do since these regulations are frequently revised, usually just making the process slower, more costly and more difficult for all involved (the contractors and the government) . Everybody wants government contracting to be absolutely fair and transparent, with no biases. At the same time they want to include preferences for selected groups. They want it to be efficient, rapid, selecting only competent vendors. They want it to select the lowest possible cost. Obviously, many of these goals are at odds with each other. No problem, they must all be met simulaneously.