While Donald Trump is attacking governors for trying to save lives by keeping coronavirus shutdowns in place, he's also actively working to endanger healthcare workers by taking hostage the equipment they need to do their jobs safely.
Go read this letter to the New England Journal of Medicine from Andrew W. Artenstein, M.D., a chief executive in the health system, about the essentially black market maneuvers he had to undertake to locate, purchase, and actually obtain—at "more than five times the amount we would normally pay"—N95 respirator masks. The entire process was like a multimillion dollar contraband exchange, from dealing with shady brokers to setting up clandestine product for money transfer arrangements and payment by wire transfer, then meeting in an out of the way industrial warehouse with "two semi-trailer trucks, cleverly marked as food-service vehicles" to transport the goods. And at the last minute, "two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrived, showed their badges, and started questioning me."
“After receiving my assurances and hearing about our health system’s urgent needs, the agents let the boxes of equipment be released and loaded into the trucks,” Artenstein writes. “But I was soon shocked to learn that the Department of Homeland Security was still considering redirecting our PPE. Only some quick calls leading to intervention by our congressional representative prevented its seizure.”
To get goddamned face masks to protect his colleagues and the people they are caring for. That's because the Trump administration—and whoever they are grifting with to make gazillions of dollars—have turned the nation's healthcare system in the Hunger Games, with states and hospitals fighting each other to find critical materials. But then they have find a way to keep Trump's people from hijacking those necessary supplies to send to people Trump likes better.
That's on top of the Trump administration swooping in to bid against states trying to obtain the supplies their hospitals need after Trump has told them that they are entirely on their own in procurement. That's driving prices up, and when the states manage to get that equipment at five or ten or whatever times the normal price, the goddamned Trump administration swoops in and poaches it.
