'Swept up by FEMA': Trump admin. sows confusion with complicated medical supply system
WASHINGTON — In Massachusetts, state leaders said they had confirmed a vast order of personal protective equipment for their health workers; then the Trump administration took control of the shipments.
“Either be in or out, folks,” Polis said on CNN. “Either you’re buying them and you’re providing them to the states and you’re letting us know what we’re going to get and when we’re going to get them, or stay out and let us buy them.” Federal officials say they are trying to expedite the shipment to the United States of large quantities of medical supplies procured by private health care providers such as McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health, Owens & Minor, Medline and Henry Schein. FEMA allows those distributors to sell about half the equipment to companies and counties that had previously placed orders.
Because the federal government determines which states are in greater need, governors and hospitals executives preparing for the worst have complained that FEMA was effectively commandeering their personal protective equipment, or PPE. “This has been described, I think appropriately, as the wild, Wild West,” Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said Sunday. “We are trying to organize in a more deliberative manner.”
“It would be like high school cafeteria drama if it weren’t life or death,” said Jared Leopold, a political consultant and the former communications director for the Democratic Governors Association. Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts said the state’s new position was “until the thing shows up here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, it doesn’t exist.”
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