It is important to understand hospitals and doctors could not legally use industrial N95 masks. No hospital could accept them without exposing themselves to massive litigation. I know this sounds stupid from outside the US. Sadly, this is part of our reality.
The key that unlocked donations was President Trump. Upon learning of this restriction he quickly put into place a release of liability for medical use of industrial N95 masks. This will be in force until at least 2024.
Because of this companies, contractors, suppliers and individuals came forward to donate masks. Apple donated a couple million units. I believe this might easily unlock tens of millions of masks as companies evaluate their inventories and continue to donate.
Commentary:
It is important to realize that the US healthcare system does not have an insurance problem. Politicians would have you think this is the case. It is not. The root cause of our high cost of healthcare, among other things, has to do with the underlying and hidden costs of doing business. This issue of masks is a simple example.
Hospitals, medical professionals and medical suppliers live in fear of greedy attorneys going after them for anything from masks to more complex equipment. This leads to major losses and costs and even legislation. And all of it increases the costs of doing business.
After this virus runs its course we would be well served to review a number of things, tort reform being a good idea. The other would be term limits for the House and Senate, I think it is beyond obvious these institutions have gone putrid to the very core.
It might also be rather strange to those outside the US to learn that in this wonderful country doctors and nurses cannot legally provide their services outside of the State where they are licensed. A doctor or nurse licensed in California cannot see patients in, say, Maine. In other words, we are not a country, we are a group of fenced-off kingdoms with some of the most ridiculous rules one could possibly imagine.
Our doctors can travel to Africa and practice medicine, yet they can't go to another State and do the same. How ridiculous is this?
That's just another element of our system that has to change. There's more, a lot more. The onerous and massively expensive drug or medical device approval process is another example.
Insurance is the last item in a very long list of issues we must address in order to bring sanity to our healthcare system.