Buy American final rule should strengthen medical supply chain
Beyond the pandemic, “Over the past several decades, supply chain disruptions have repeatedly plagued the U.S. healthcare system,” report says.
March 7, 2022 / Susan Morse, Executive Editor
A final rule issued on Friday implements an executive order to spur domestic production of supplies, including products in the medical supply chain.
The Department of Defense, the General Services Administration and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration issued the final rule, which goes into effect on October 25. This rule increases the domestic content threshold for products, initially from 55% to 60%, then to 65% in calendar year 2024 and to 75% in calendar year 2029.
A number of respondents to the proposed rule said complying with the content thresholds would be difficult, if not impossible, because of a shortage of available domestic components and subcomponents.
In answer, the final rule stipulates that in the event the government does not receive any offers of domestic end products or if the domestic end products are of unreasonable cost it would treat the end products that have at least 55% domestic content as a domestic end product for evaluation purposes.
A couple of the respondents said they believed the higher domestic content thresholds would not promote U.S. manufacturing and would not accomplish the administration’s stated objective, the final rule said.