Let's end this FReepathon!
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Obamacare is crap from start to finish, unless you are one of Obama’s chosen few. Everyone else has to pay for it.
If the companies lease the equipment, do they have to pay the tax?
Years ago I asked someone in the industry why no medical device makers had been outsourcing to China, India, etc. He repied “Who wants to be heading into the O.R. to get a pacemaker that was made in China”?
Now, I guess we’re going to find out...
"Without action from Congress, implementation of the medical device tax will cost our economy thousands of high paying jobs," MITA executive director Gail Rodriguez said in prepared remarks. "These job losses will directly impact patient access to the most advanced, life-saving medical technologies available." …
The Medical Imaging and Technology Alliance (MITA) figured in April 2010 that the crocodile would eat them last when they cheered Obamacare while expressing concern over the tax:
MITA Statement on Health Care Reform
04.07.10Rosslyn, Va. – The Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance (MITA) said that the historic health care reform law will alter the trajectory of our nation’s health care delivery system by expanding medical coverage to Americans who could not access or afford insurance.
“MITA supports the 75 percent utilization assumption provision in the bill as an important improvement over the 90 percent utilization rate assumption put forward by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in their 2010 physician fee schedule,” said Dave Fisher, Executive Director of MITA.
“MITA and its members will continue to closely monitor these reimbursement reductions — coupled with additional cuts made in 2007 and practice expense cuts implemented by CMS this year to determine if these significant changes will adversely affect beneficiaries’ access to life-saving diagnostic services.
“Further, the new medical device tax included in the new law remains a concern for MITA and its member companies due to its potential to stifle medical innovation, create additional job layoffs and reduce patient access to quality care,” Fisher said.
“As the implementation of the health reform law begins, MITA remains committed to working closely with Congress and the Administration to monitor and evaluate how these changes impact patients, providers, and our member-company employees. Moreover, MITA and its members also look forward to working with Congress and the Administration to ensure that physician-developed appropriate use guidelines are used at the point of care. As a long-time supporter of developing and using appropriateness criteria for imaging services, we believe these guidelines together with an education and confidential feedback program to report patterns of adherence to those criteria will provide CMS with necessary information to limit inappropriate imaging while maintaining patients’ access to needed imaging services that saves lives, improve quality of care and reduce health care costs,” Fisher said.
(Source: April 7, 2010 Press Release: MITA Statement on Health Care Reform)
How can this be? Obama care is going to cut expenses, a Tax is not a cut in expenses?
Most medical device companies barely clear 6% profit. For Obama to take 2.3% of that means these companies no longer find it profitable to stay in business. I know of two major companies that have met since the election to discuss the closing of the companies.
In ‘08, I saw a clip of Holdren or Sunstein talking about reusing prosthetics and other medical devices.
How about that.
Some guy was talking about converting the dead into green goo and shooting them into space. I kid you not.
This communist doesn’t give a damn about Americans except to dictate his sick policy of converting America to a third rate nation.
i could MAYBE see a tax on gold plated wheelchairs, but... medical devices are NOT what you or your insurance company WANT to spend money on, they are what you HAVE to spend your money on when you need them, and taxing ANYTHING to do medical care is as obscene as taxing food!!!