The Hill reports a Pennsylvania company that received $13.8 million in
tax dollars to produce cheap, portable ventilators is now selling them
overseas as the U.S. scrambles to find enough of the devices to sustain
hospital patients affected by the coronavirus, according to an
investigation by ProPublica.

In 2015 the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contracted the
company to produce the ventilators, which were approved by the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) in September 2019. Not a single version of the
model, Trilogy Evo Universal, in the U.S. stockpile.

HHS ordered 10,000 of the ventilators for the Strategic National
Stockpile at a cost of $3,280 each. Instead, the company, which is a
subsidiary of Dutch appliance and technology giant Royal Philips N.V.,
began selling more expensive versions of the ventilators across the world.

HHS told ProPublica that the company agreed to produce them “as soon as
possible,� but a Philips spokesman said the company has no plan to even
begin production anytime this year.

Instead, the company is reportedly negotiating with a White House team
led by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to build 43,000 more
ventilators for Americans infected with COVID-19.