Trump seeks to force General Motors to produce ventilators
DETROIT » President Donald Trump issued an order Friday that seeks to force General Motors to produce ventilators for coronavirus patients under the Defense Production Act.
Trump said negotiations with General Motors had been productive, “but our fight against the virus is too urgent to allow the give-andtake of the contracting process to continue to run its normal course.”
Trump said “GM was wasting time” and that his actions will help ensure the quick production of ventilators that will save American lives.
Previously Trump has been reluctant to use the act to force businesses to contribute to the coronavirus fight. GM is among the farthest along of U.S. companies trying to repurpose factories to build ventilators. It’s working with Ventec Life Systems, a small Seattle-area ventilator maker to increase the company’s production and GM will use its auto electronics plant in Kokomo, Indiana, to make the machines.
Experts say that no matter how many ventilators companies can crank out, it may not be enough to cover the entire need, and it may not come in time to help areas now being hit hard with critical virus cases.
U.S. hospitals now have about 65,000 ventilators fully capable of treating severe coronavirus patients. They could cobble together about 170,000, including some simpler versions that won’t work in all cases, said Dr. Lewis Rubinson, chief medical officer at Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey and lead author of a 2010 medical journal article on the matter.
The Society of Critical Care Medicine has projected that 960,000 coronavirus patients in the U.S. may need to be put on ventilators at one point or another during the outbreak.
Rubinson said it’s unlikely the U.S. would need that many ventilators at the same time, estimating it will need more like 300,000 fairly quickly. If social distancing works, people will get sick at different times, allowing hospitals to use ventilators on multiple patients.
GM said Friday it could build 10,000 ventilators per month starting in April with potential to make even more.
After Trump invoked the act, GM said in a statement that it has been working around the clock for more than a week with Ventec and parts suppliers to build more ventilators. The company said its commitment to build Ventec’s ventilators “has never wavered.”
Trump said from the Oval Office that the government thought it had a deal for 40,000 ventilators but GM cut the number to 6,000 and talked about a higher price than previously discussed.
“I didn’t like it,” he said. “So we did activate it with respect to General Motors.
At his daily briefing Friday evening, Trump said cost became an issue with GM. “We didn’t want to play games with them,” he said, adding that GM now agrees with him and he may be able to pull the order.
He also said wasn’t happy with GM for closing its factory in Lordstown, Ohio. “I didn’t go into it with a very favorable view,” he said.
GM said it is offering resources to Ventec “at cost.” Ventec, not GM, is talking with the government, and the only changes Ventec has made have been at the government’s request, said Chris Brooks, the company’s chief strategy officer. GM would merely be a contract manufacturer for Ventec, he said.