ECONOMICS: The Cost of Ventilators Just Skyrocketed — And New York Needs Thousands More. “New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says the price of ventilators has soared from less than $20,000 to more than $50,000.”
Cuomo said last week that New York state has roughly 12,000 ventilators, but will likely need as many as 40,000 at the projected height of the pandemic. But since no state will remain untouched by the virus, both states and the federal government are now jockeying for ventilators. And that’s pushing prices up.
“We’ve created a situation where you literally have hundreds of entities looking to buy the same exact materials basically from the same place, which is China, ironically enough,” Cuomo said.
“The ventilators are now over $50,000, if you can find them,” he added. “The ventilators didn’t change that much in two weeks. The prices went up because literally we are driving the prices up. But we need to give our front line, our health care professionals, the supplies they need. And we need to do it now.”
High prices will lead to increased supply which will lower prices. Cap prices and the increased supplies will never materialize. This is Econ 101 stuff, which confuses even supposedly intelligent people.
Next Up: The wisdom of making one badly-run country your sole supplier of seemingly everything.
h/t SG