> Everyone who works on the front lines of providing care to COVID patients is a first responder, and whether they or their employers pay, is irrelevant.
I bet it's relevant to them.
> It is the moral imperative of leadership to do what it takes to resolve the situation now, and figure out the details later.
But what does that even mean? Suppose Donald Trump is suddenly made owner of all PPE. How is he qualified to allocate it efficiently? What does someone do who legitimately needs it but didn't make his list?
> Not to mention, I've always said we need more expensive health insurance in America.
You need more healthcare during a pandemic. It costs money. It has to come from somewhere.
> It could therefore create a national stockpile of gear first responders might need in a pandemic, and fill it at contracted prices.
And then go several years without a pandemic at which point the stockpile will either have rotted or been cut from the budget as "unnecessary" before the next one.
This is the type of problem where you want redundancies. The government can try to keep a stockpile and you still want private stockpiles in case they fail or are insufficient -- as has obviously happened. It's not like this is the first ever pandemic in the world that no one could have ever foreseen. What is going to cause them to do any better next time?
> As they have done with oil. And helium. And raisins.
The strategic petroleum reserve is some kind of a silly farce. Oil is a global commodity and the US is a major producer. The reserve exists entirely as a result of politics, it isn't really useful for much.
The "helium reserve" exists primarily because the government is a major producer of the stuff. Nearly all the helium on earth is a product of nuclear reactors.
And the "strategic raisin reserve" (insert eyeroll) was recently found unconstitutional.