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Smith & Nephew eliminated nearly 100 jobs in Memphis and Andover, Mass., on Thursday, Jan. 31, as the medical device company cuts expenses in an effort to offset tax hikes included in the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act includes a 2.3 percent medical device tax, which took effect Jan. 1. The London-based company, which employs about 1,800 people in Memphis, said the new tax will cost the industry about $30 billion over 10 years. “(The tax) has impacted a number of companies across the U.S.,” said Joe Metzger, senior vice president of corporate communications. “Smith & Nephew is...

In 2013, the tax increases in Obamacare will increasingly conspire against kitchen-table family healthcare decisions. As just one example, below are some of the taxes that will impact the purchase of dental braces: Obamacare Medical Device Tax: As of Jan.1, Obamacare imposes a new tax of 2.3 percent on medical device manufacturers, including those who make dental braces. The tax is imposed on gross sales -- even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. While the tax will be paid to the IRS by the manufacturer, the tax will be passed along as a higher...

With the fiscal cliff deal and many Obamacare taxes taking effect, Americans will be slammed with an estimated $264 billion in new taxes this year alone—making 2013 memorable for delivering one of the largest one-year tax increases in American history. The math breakdown of the new taxes is simple: Key parts of the Bush tax cuts will expire as a result of the new fiscal cliff legislation, hitting American taxpayers with a tax bill of about $39.5 billion each year for the next decade. … Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi issued a projection that the tax burden will cut GDP...

Remember that Nancy Pelosi told us that we needed to pass ObamaCare to find out what’s in it. Barack Obama promised to “bend the cost curve,� too. Looks like both of them were right, at least according to the Paper of Record, which discovers to its surprise that dumping nebulous mandates on insurers causes them to bend the cost curve sharply upward (via Instapundit): Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid...

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service on Wednesday released final rules for a new tax on medical devices, products ranging from surgical sutures to knee replacement implants, that starts next year ... ... The tax applies mostly to devices used and implanted by medical professionals, including items as complex as pacemakers or as simple as tongue depressors. Products sold for humanitarian reasons, such as experimental cancer treatment devices, are not exempt from the tax. ... it remains "an open question" when latex gloves come under the tax

The Obama Administration proposal to fix the "fiscal cliff" coming at the end of the year called for $1.6 trillion in tax hikes over current policy. House Speaker John Boehner said he was "flabbergasted" when presented with the proposal this week. Boehner tells "Fox News Sunday" that after Geithner briefed him privately on Thursday, he looked at Geithner and said, "You can't be serious." Boehner called it "silliness" that the White House was, among other things, asking Congress to give up its power to set the nation's debt limit. Earlier today, Geithner insisted that the Obama Administration wouldn't relent on...

We need a catchy keword for Obama Taxes. Last term it was Obamacare, which has a negative connotation to many people. The hiking of the tax rates for working Americans is the Goal of the Obama Administration. Period. The reason: the free-loaders of this country [who expect working Americans to support them] do not want their benefits cut. At one time, people referred to Massachusetts as Taxachusetts Maybe some catchy phrase might be found to put a label on Obama and his tax plan. Some Links: Obama tax plan hashtag hijacked by conservative think tankHeritage Foundation buys a promoted tweet...

Freedom Works has put together a list of companies that will be laying of employees as a result of President Barack Obama's health care law: Welch Allyn Welch Allyn, a company that manufactures medical diagnostic equipment in central New York, announced in September that they would be laying off 275 employees, or roughly 10% of their workforce over the next three years. One of the major reasons discussed for the layoffs was a proactive response to the Medical Device Tax mandated by the new healthcare law. Dana Holding Corp. As recently as a week ago, a global auto parts manufacturing...

Nearly $1 billion in payments to hospitals over the next year will be based in part on patient satisfaction, determined by a 27-question government survey administered to patients. Hospitals with high scores will get a bonus payment. Those with low ones will lose money. The program is part of a much broader pay-for-performance system built into President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul. Many medical professionals have balked at the questionnaires, saying they are unfair. Older hospitals in inner cities, or facilities that tend to accept patients through cramped and busy emergency rooms, say their scores automatically suffer through no fault of...

The housing market may indeed be recovering, as many experts suggest, but investors are still struggling to understand what, if any, taxes they'll owe upon selling their homes. At issue is how the new "Medicare tax" will apply to real-estate transactions. Passed in 2010 to help fund the health-care overhaul, this 3.8% surtax kicks in next year on many forms of investment income—including some interest, dividends, rents and capital gains. While its effect on home sales won't be as far-reaching as many fear, the Medicare tax could pack a punch for certain investors. It is not a sales tax. And...

President Obama's entire campaign strategy is based on an age-old political trick that he can overcome his weakness on the economy by changing the subject. His strategists concluded more than a year ago that he was unlikely to win a second term based on his promise to restore the economy to full health and put tens of millions of long unemployed Americans back work. So they fashioned a divisive campaign that was heavily focused on single issue voters -- women, for one, and the large Hispanic vote, for another -- in a handful of critical battleground states he needs to...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional budget analysts are now estimating that nearly 6 million Americans — most of them in the middle class — will have to pay a tax penalty for not getting health insurance once President Barack Obama's health care law is fully in place.

A year and a half after the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, bureaucrats at the IRS and Health and Human Services issued an 18-page report outlining new regulations that will dramatically increase health care costs for small and large businesses alike. The regulations, written by an IRS attorney, arbitrarily redefine "full time employee" as someone who works 30 hours a week for a business. Traditionally, most private businesses have defined "full time employee" as someone who works 40 hours a week. With this new regulation, the federal government is now removing the right of businesses to...

U.S. health insurance premiums have climbed faster than wages and inflation this year, and look poised to accelerate in 2013, adding to voter concerns about soaring healthcare costs ahead of November elections for the White House and Congress. A study released on Tuesday showed that premiums for employer-sponsored health plans, which cover about 149 million Americans, grew a modest 4 percent to $15,745 in 2012. It was a substantially slower rate of growth than in past years, including 2011, when premiums jumped 9 percent. But the study's authors at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational...

Skaneatles Falls, NY -- Welch Allyn told employees at companywide meetings this morning that it plans to cut 275 jobs, or about 10 percent of its worldwide workforce. The uncertainty surrounding the future of the Obama health care package is creating turmoil in the domestic market, [Chief Executive Steve Meyer] said. Hospitals and doctor offices aren't investing in new equipment until they see how the health care issues will play out, Meyer said. Welch Allyn and other medical device makers face a new federal tax hike come January when a new 2.3 percent tax on sales of medical devices called...

Any year now, Democrats may start to ask themselves if it might have been better had John Roberts not changed his mind. If they would be better off with Obamacare out of its and our misery, a bone of contention now safely buried, and not as a bone in their throats. For one thing, they still have the issue upon them -- the historic triumph they don't dare mention but which Republicans happily do. Second, were Obamacare no longer the law, we might be seeing an uptick in hiring right now. Instead, that will be deferred until after November (and...

The Republican National Committee chairman says President Obama has “blood on [his] hands” for cutting Medicare. Mitt Romney blasts the president for having “robbed” the program of $700 billion. Vice President Biden accuses Romney and running mate Paul Ryan of “gutting” Medicare. And, inevitably, President Obama warned that Romney-Ryan would “end Medicare as we know it.” Aren’t you glad we’re having a sober policy discussion about how to rein in entitlement spending?

Now that Mitt Romney has named Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan as his running-mate on the Republican ticket, dishonest liberals are dusting off their old standby of "Mediscare," making false accusations that conservatives want to completely dismantle Medicare and Social Security simply because they wish to make some changes in order to preserve them. Democrats, it is implied, would never dare to change such programs. Unfortunately for this argument, there is one prominent liberal Democrat who has not only reduced Medicare spending growth, he's even touted his willingness to do the same to Social Security. That liberal Democrat is none other...

States that have refused to implement the Obama health law have already blocked $80 billion of its new deficit spending. If more states follow suit, they can block the other $1.6 trillion and force Congress to repeal the law. The law relies on states to implement two of its most essential pieces: health-insurance "exchanges" and a vast expansion of Medicaid. Exchanges are government agencies through which the law channels $800 billion to private health-insurance companies.The Medicaid expansion adds another $900 billion to the federal debt, with private insurers again taking a slice. States are under no obligation either to implement...

President Obama takes the offensive by presenting Mitt Romney’s tax-cutting plan as something that will actually raise taxes on the middle class so the wealthy can pay less. Seizing on a new study, Mr. Obama is trying to convince voters that his opponent will do exactly what he says he will not. THE SCRIPT A male narrator says: “You work hard. Stretch every penny. But chances are you pay a higher tax rate than him. Mitt Romney made $20 million in 2010 but paid only 14 percent in taxes, probably less than you. Now he has a plan that would...

(CBS News) Beginning today, up to 47 million women may be eligible to get free access to preventive health care services as that provision of President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act goes into effect. Under the new provision that goes into effect August 1, 2012, women will be eligible to receive the following eight services without paying a co-pay: Well-woman visits, Contraception and contraceptive counseling, Gestational diabetes screening, HPV DNA testing, Annual sexually transmitted infections (STI) counseling, HIV screening and counseling, Breastfeeding support, supplies, and counseling, and Interpersonal and domestic violence screening and counseling.

An Indiana-based medical equipment manufacturer says it's scrapping plans to open five new plants in the coming years because of a looming tax tied to President Obama's health care overhaul law. Cook Medical claims the tax on medical devices, set to take effect next year, will cost the company roughly $20 million a year, cutting into money that would otherwise go toward expanding into new facilities over the next five years. "This is the equivalent of about a plant a year that we're not going to be able to build," a company spokesman told FoxNews.com. He said the original plan...

President Barack Obama's health care law is putting new strains on some of the nation's most hard-pressed hospitals, by cutting aid that they use to pay for emergency care for illegal immigrants, which they have long been required to provide. The federal government has been spending $20 billion annually to reimburse these hospitals — most in poor urban and rural areas —for treating more than their share of the uninsured, including illegal immigrants. The health care law will eventually cut that money in half, based on the premise that fewer people will lack insurance after the law takes effect. But...

........."We see the strength of the Houston housing market as a direct reflection of improving consumer confidence in the local economy as a whole," said Wayne A. Stroman, HAR chairman and CEO of Stroman Realty. "One of the principal factors in the demand for homes throughout greater Houston has been steady job gains that the Texas Workforce Commission reports has amounted to more than 90,000 hires over the past year. In its July economic outlook, the Greater Houston Partnership said 'Houston is the strongest of all the major metro economies in the U.S., and if job growth continues at the...

A number of Havana doctors, nurses and others are under investigation for allegedly treating paying patients in public hospitals and running post-surgery recovery rooms in private homes,... ...The case highlights the growing reports of low paid Cuban medical personnel treating patients who pay under the table to receive better care than what they can receive from a deteriorated public health system — the island’s only legal alternative. Cubans living in South Florida often pay in dollars to improve the care of relatives on the island,...or undergo medical procedures themselves during visits to the country to avoid the high costs of...

As of 5 p.m. Tuesday, Mohammad N. Akhter will no longer be the District’s health director. Officials said Dr. Akhter officially requested a yearlong leave of absence from Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s Cabinet so he can serve on a board charged with carrying out a key portion of President Obama’s health care reforms within the District. By law, Dr. Akhter had to step aside from his job as director of the D.C. Department of Health so he could serve on the city’s Health Benefit Exchange Board. He followed through on those plans before his swearing-in Tuesday alongside six other appointees...

Medicaid is failing Texans. Recipients are dissatisfied with the care they receive, and fewer doctors are participating in the program. By refusing to expand Medicaid at the whim of the expensive Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Gov. Rick Perry is recognizing that the first step in getting healthy begins with stopping what has made us ill. Let's be clear: the Obamacare expansion of Medicaid being discussed isn't about more help for the poor, it is about expanding the program well past the poverty line and into the middle class. If the only measure of success is found in spending...

Supporters of the Obama health law are incorrectly reading the Supreme Court’s ruling as a victory. First, the ruling severely limited the Obama health law’s Medicaid expansion, effectively giving states the green light to refuse to expand their Medicaid programs. Coupled with the fact that the statute already enables states to block the other half-trillion dollars of new entitlement spending, the law is in a very precarious position. Second, the Court ruled 5-4 that the individual mandate is not a legitimate use of the Commerce Power. That too is a defeat for the government, even if it is of no...

“I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes,” President Obama, September 12, 2008 Beginning January 1, 2013, ObamaCare imposes a 3.8% Medicare tax on unearned income of “high-income” taxpayers which could apply to proceeds from the sale of single family homes, townhouses, co-ops, condominiums, and even rental income, depending on your individual circumstances and any capital gains tax exclusions. Importantly, the “high income” thresholds are not...

If you have yet to make up your mind about the Affordable Care Act, this list might help you decide. 1. Individual mandate Obamacare may have been upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court, but Chief Justice John Roberts’ extraordinary opinion clearly labeled the law’s individual mandate a tax. Whether the power to enact a penalty for failing to purchase a product derives from the Commerce Clause or Congress’ taxing authority makes little difference. Every American will have to purchase health insurance and those who don’t will face an IRS-enforced tax that totals 2.5 percent of adjusted growth income in...

The Treasury Department released proposed regulations on June 22, 2012 interpreting and implementing specific requirements for hospitals to maintain their Section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status as part of the 2010 Health Care Reform Act. Section 501(r)(4) requires a hospital organization to establish a written financial assistance policy. The statute specifies that the financial assistance policy must include: (1) eligibility criteria for financial assistance, and whether such assistance includes free or discounted care; (2) the basis for calculating amounts charged to patients; (3) the method for applying for financial assistance; (4) in the case of an organization that does not have a...

The latest Quinnipiac poll shows that — by a 15-point margin — the Supreme Court’s Obamacare ruling makes voters less likely, rather than more likely, to cast their vote for President Obama. Twenty-seven percent of registered voters say that the ruling makes them “less likely” to vote for Obama, while only 12 percent say that it makes them “more likely” to do so. Only 9 percent of independents say that they are “more likely” to vote for Obama because of the ruling, compared to 27 percent who are “less likely.”  Among Catholics — a large percentage of whom are historically swing voters...

A majority of Florida voters oppose the national health care law and half want it repealed, a new Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9 poll shows two weeks after President Barack Obama’s signature achievement was largely upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Only 43 percent of voters statewide support the Affordable Care Act and 52 percent oppose it, with 5 percent undecided. With the exception of southeast Florida, more voters think the law will make the health care system worse. More voters also favor the state opting out of provisions of the law, something Gov. Rick Scott has already said...

Over the last couple of months, Americans for Tax Reform has highlighted the 20 new or higher taxes on American families and employers created by Obamacare. The significance of these tax increases is that they are a direct violation of candidate Obama’s promise not to raise “any form” of taxes on these families. In an attempt to justify this widely unpopular piece of legislation, the Obama campaign released their own sort of “Fact Check” today. The response, however, missed the mark by ignoring hard numbers and common sense. They chose 5 of the 20 overall new or higher taxes to...

Part Two -- The Strategy As we saw in Part One of this series, the Achilles Heels of Obamacare are taxes and trust. If the voters had known in 2010 what they know in 2012--that Obamacare is ObamaTax--the bill would not have passed. And Obama and the Democrats know that, too. That’s why they are still fighting over whether or not it’s a tax or a penalty; for the sake of their own survival, they need to keep their rhetorical fog machine fogging. In this effort, partisan Democrats enjoy the full support of the hard ideological left, and the left...

The Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee will later today release the following chart, detailing the rising projected cost of President Obama's signature legislation, Obamacare: The latest estimate, as the chart details, is that Obamacare will cost $2.6 trillion dollars in its first real decade. The bill does not fully go into effect until 2014, therefore the estimate begins with that year. "President Obama promised a joint session of Congress in 2009 to spend $900 billion over ten years on his health care law: 'Now, add it all up, and the plan that I’m proposing will

I am retired USN and currently pay a small Premium to HUMANA for TRICARE PRIME this covers my family with medical insurance. Since I began working for my employer he has allowed me to keep the portion that he would have to pay for my healthcare insurance as incentive pay it works out to be about $2.50 per hour. How is this going to be impacted by Obamacare? Any references would be appreciated.

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff attacked Gov. Rick Perry's decision to reject federal matching funds to expand Medicaid eligibility Tuesday, saying it would put more pressure on the county's public hospital system and strained budgets. He said the University Health System, which runs the county's public hospitals, might explore teaming with other public hospital systems in the state to access the federal money and expand healthcare coverage locally. “The Legislature will have some final say in it. They may come up with a different solution, so we have some time to figure it out.” Wolff said. “It's important to put...

--snip-- Unfortunately, the tax policies in the president’s signature health-care law ignore this advice. The Supreme Court’s decision last week does not change the fact that the scandalous new tax on life-saving medical devices (of all of the new taxes tucked into the law) had received the most prominent attention prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling, most notably when the House recently voted to repeal it.) As we continue to review last week’s sweeping decision and its consequences for the American people, it is worth taking stock of Obamacare, perhaps now better named “Obamatax,” starting with a less-well-known $87 billion...

President Obama on Monday reiterated his push to extend the Bush Tax cuts for the middle class but not the 2% of U.S. households making more than $250,000. But millions of middle class Americans are at risk of higher taxes if no action is taken before Jan. 1, notes Josh Brown, vice president of Fusion Analytics and author of The Reformed Broker blog. Specifically, Brown is concerned about the sharp rise in taxes on dividends and capital gains that will occur as part of the so-called fiscal cliff -- or "taxmageddon" if you prefer. If Congress fails to act, the...

Many Republican activists have voiced concern over the Romney campaign’s rhetorical stumbles since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld President Obama’s health care law. However, voters still overwhelmingly believe the likely GOP nominee’s claim that he will repeal the law if elected. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 80% of Likely U.S. Voters nationwide think it’s likely the health care law will be repealed if Romney is elected president and Republicans win control of Congress. Just 15% see it as unlikely. The figures include 52% who believe a GOP sweep would make repeal Very Likely. (To see survey...

Big Government: Like King George III, ObamaCare has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of IRS agents and regulators to harass our people and eat out their substance. A second revolution is needed. We paraphrase these words from the Declaration of Independence as a reminder of what spawned this country's independence — an oppressive governance that would give rise to the original Tea Party in Boston — and as a reminder of President Reagan's dictum that the demise of the liberty we fought for and cherish is never more than a generation away. The price of...

Now that conservatives and libertarians are beginning to recover from the injuries they sustained by banging their heads against walls, desks, and other hard objects on June 28, perhaps it's a good time to introduce a ray of hope that might have seemed absurdly Pollyannaish during the dark hours immediately following the Supreme Court's surreal Obamacare ruling. Although the voters can put an end to the madness on November 6, the states don't need to wait until Election Day to take aim at a point of vulnerability that remains in place despite the Court's latest caprice. They can refuse to...

From the diseased mind of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius: (Emphasis added where appropriate. Snarky comments from me are in [brackets].) *** "Every American deserves to have a clean, safe and healthy environment. Today, we understand better than ever before that our health is not only dependent on what happens in the doctor’s office but is determined by the air we breathe, the water we drink and the communities we call home. Over the past two years, the Administration and our agency have taken unprecedented steps to ensure strong protection from environmental and health hazards for all Americans. There’s nothing more...

Come 2014, you'll have to pay a tax if you're uninsured -- but how exactly it's going to work is still getting sorted out. The IRS isn't sure how many people they'll have to hire, or how much implementation will end up costing:

The monthly payroll jobs report, due out on Friday, has emerged as the Super Bowl of economic data — a hype-ridden event that attracts the attention of a very large audience. Thursday brought the pre-game show, in the form of three employment-related data points. [Snip] After months of nauseating weakness, is something going on in the labor market? It's quite possible, although my guest on The Daily Ticker, Larry Kudlow, host of the Kudlow Report on CNBC, is less sanguine. "If we get more jobs, count me thrilled and happy," he said. "If you had a 300,000 number on ADP...

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Of course that is the headline. A look at the facts which generated this headline are somewhat telling. First this is an unscientific poll generated by sending an email to 9,500 physician leaders who are members of the American College of Physician Executives (ACPE).Second,the inquiry drew only 617 responses. Third, 377 said they supported JR and the Supreme's ruling. An honest appraisal of the results would indicate that there should be at least four categories of positions, approve, disapprove, unsure and no opinion. The no opinions have it, 8883 to 388 to 191 to 35. So 94% of these people...

Dear Friend, In this video commentary, I discuss how Obama broke his fundamental campaign pledge not to raise taxes on anyone making under $200K. This is a key November issue. Tune in!

My first thread on Free Republic I asked if Mitt Romney would balance the budget, and the consensus was that he would not. That we should expect more of the same. So for this next one, I will ask more stuff which is important to me a fiscal free market conservative: Will Mitt Romney expand the role, size, and cost of government? I’m asking these questions about the deficit, and size of government because I don’t understand what the difference is so far between Obama and Romney, and not sure what the point is in replacing Obama with Romney if...