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As lawmakers ponder ways to bring back U.S. manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, their raw materials, medical supplies, and devices, it must be remembered a major part of this problem which has come back to bite us was created by the Obama/Biden administration and the medical device tax that was included in ObamaCare that was supposed to defray the costs of this doomed-to-failure new entitlement program. As part of the Orwellian-named Affordable Care Act, sales of medical devices from implants to MRIs, research equipment and surgical instruments were to bear a 2.3 percent tax. The tax would be on gross sales and...

The House voted to repeal a 2.3 percent medical device tax, a provision that both parties have criticized for harming innovation. The medical device tax was first imposed in January 2013 to help fund the ACA. After harsh criticism from legislators and the medical device industry, Congress passed a two-year suspension of the levy in 2015. While the suspension was set to expire Jan. 1, a stopgap bill signed into law by President Donald Trump Jan. 22, further delayed the medical levy. It was set to take effect Jan. 1, 2020. The tax applies to products such as pacemakers and...

Barack Obama and the White House threaten vetoes daily on bills under consideration in the Republican-controlled Congress, especially those impacting Obama’s signature health-care system. That threat may end up backfiring on Obama when it comes to the medical-device tax. The House took action yesterday on the most unpopular funding mechanism in ObamaCare, repealing it outright on a 280-140 vote. That’s just shy of the two-thirds necessary, but the GOP has some reserves on this vote: The 2.3 percent tax on medical devices enacted as part of that law passed Thursday in the House 280-140, giving Republicans hope they’ll have...

Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, says he has every intention of voting to repeal Obamacare with a new GOP majority in January, but also said people should be realistic about what to expect in the way of repeal with President Obama still in the White House. “We certainly will have a vote on proceeding to a bill to repeal Obamacare. … It was a very large issue in the campaign,” Mr. McConnell told Roll Call. “We’re certainly gonna keep our commitment to the American people to make every effort we can to repeal it. “It is a...

But it's "only" 2.3%! How can such a tiny tax have such a large negative impact? That's the thinking of the excise tax supporters who think that the medical device industry can "easily afford" the tax (New York Times) and besides, they deserve it because they're "anti-competitive": A new survey says Obamacare's tax on medical device manufacturers has cost the industry about 33,000 jobs.In a report this week, the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) said companies cut about 14,000 workers and decided not to hire about 19,000 workers because of theThe report also said the 2.3 percent excise tax also...

As I mentioned yesterday, the medical device tax that went into effect last January is just one of the many insidious job-killing measures contained within ObamaCare, but it is an especially terrible one. The 2.3 percent excise tax is meant to raise a handsome $30 billion to pay for ObamaCare over the next decade, except that, added bonus: It’s going to stifle innovation and competition in an industry that provides all manner of life-saving medical devices, from MRIs to pacemakers to blood tubes. And this hasn’t just been a Republican refrain, by the way. Thursday night, the Senate voted overwhelmingly...

I’m being told by several sources that Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor are plotting to give up trying to either defund or delay Obamacare. This comes at the same time the Obama administration admits it will be months before their Obamacare website will be fixed and Kathleen Sebelius is saying if people want out of the mandate they can pay a fine. Nonetheless, Cantor, Boehner, and with them Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn are expected to cave in and fully fund, unimpeded, Obamacare. They will work up a new deal that includes a debt ceiling increase with a...

<p>Washington (CNN) - A repeal of the medical device tax may be a point of compromise between the House and Senate as the two houses of Congress work to end the government shutdown, the number two Democrat in the Senate said Tuesday.</p>

According to a company with a vested interest in the situation, the newly imposed federal excise tax on medical devices is having an unfortunate consequence—relocation of manufacturing from the United States to Mexico. It's not a tax dodge—the tax still has to be paid. Moving to Mexico is a way to cut costs, according to an outfit called Co-Production International, a California company that is glad to help companies make the move. "We've seen a dramatic increase in online and personal inquiries from medical device manufacturers since the tax went into effect in January," says Enrique Esparza, president of CPI....

Political and policy fiasco alert: The GOP Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee is gearing up to waste the House Republican Majority's energy, time and political goodwill on a doomed-to-fail scheme that conservative realists know cannot emerge from Congress. The price of pursuing this strategy will be the loss of many good and necessary initiatives that could get done, initiatives that could unify and energize the voting public behind an expanded GOP House majority in 2014 and gains in the Senate as well. The consequence of this strategic blunder could be the loss of the House majority. Everybody...

Some medical device manufacturers are trying to pass on the cost of the new federal tax on medical devices to hospitals, and a trade group on Thursday said it has launched a website to identify those companies publicly. Congress imposed the 2.3 percent tax on the manufacturers as part of the Affordable Care Act. It is expected to collect more than $30 billion over the next decade to help extend healthcare coverage to millions of Americans who would otherwise be uninsured. The Healthcare Supply Chain Association, which represents the biggest group purchasing organizations (GPO) used by hospitals, on Thursday said...

"Nothing is so well calculated to produce a death-like torpor in the country as an extended system of taxation and a great national debt." --William Cobbett What is it with this administration -- a general envy and resentment of success ("You didn't build that!") or just a general incompetence at anything to do with basic economics? Like the old and bitter truth that the surest way to make something scarcer is to tax it. The administration's latest victim is the American medical-device industry -- the people who make everything from body-scanning machines to catheters to glucose meters, anything regulated by...

January 1, 2013 brought a host of new taxes, fees, and charges to the American people. Some of them were anticipated. Others, like the (Medical Device Excise Tax) (MDET), were not — at least not in this way. How so? Well, the MDET has started showing up on the receipts for purchases made at sporting goods giant Cabela’s. This receipt from one such store in Texas is making the rounds on the web. It shows an additional tax has been added to the purchase, after the local sales tax of nearly 10% was charged. [snip] What is a Medical Excise...

The Obama administration earlier this year defended the medical device tax, saying companies actually stand to benefit from the law. lol

Senate Democrats who helped pass ObamaCare are finally seeing what is in it and aren't really so sure the massive tax increases mandated in the legislation will be good for their constituents, especially when it comes to the medical device tax which is set to further increase on January 1. With some of their most influential constituent groups facing onerous tax increases that are slated to help fund the law’s mandates and regulations, Senators like Al Franken (D-MN), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Patty Murray (D-WA), John Kerry (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and...

Eighteen Democratic U.S. Senators and senators-elect sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid last week calling for a “delay in the implementation” of the medical device tax in Obamacare, the Wall Street Journal reports. The provision was an integral part of the version of the Obamacare law, which was passed in the Senate under Reid’s stewardship in 2009. It is set to take effect on January 1, 2013. An effort to repeal the provision failed in Congress in June. At the time, Reid characterized the proposed repeal as a Republican attack on Obamacare. “The medical technology industry directly...

What a pity.  If only someone had demonstrated the foresight to warn against the destructive consequences of Obamacare's medical device tax, they might have helped turn public sentiment sharply against the law prior to passage.  Oh, that's right, conservatives did -- and the American people rose up in opposition.  Now, the very actors who are most responsible for ignoring public demands and jamming through Obamacare are trying to "delay" or repeal a major element of their law, warning that it could stifle medical innovation and kill jobs.  Welcome to the party, guys.  You're about two years too late:   U.S....

By all means, please tell us about the job-killing consequences of the monstrous law you voted for twice, former Democratic Senator: The Supreme Court decision in June upholding the Affordable Care Act leaves in place a tax on medical devices that threatens thousands of American jobs and our global competitiveness. It will also stifle critical medical innovation in the industry that gave us defibrillators, pacemakers, artificial joints, stents, chemotherapy delivery systems and almost every device we depend on to save lives. The 2.3% tax will be charged to manufacturers on each sale and takes effect in January. Many U.S. device...

New Mexico Dem Senate candidate Martin Heinrich misleads with defense of medical device tax. Democratic New Mexico congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Martin Heinrich defended his vote to uphold a job-killing provision of Obamacare on Tuesday, despite his previous acknowledgment that the provision would have negative economic consequences for his home state. ... Heinrich voted June 7 of this year to uphold the 2.3 percent excise tax on medical device manufacturers that will take effect next year under Obamacare ... The medical device tax is sure to be a hot topic in the New Mexico campaign. New Mexico is home...

Stryker Corp. is preparing to lay off area workers as it winds down the local operations it acquired from Gaymar Industries. Stryker has filed a notice with the state Department of Labor that it will lay off 11 area employees starting Sept. 21. ... Stryker has put the Orchard Park location up for sale for $3.9 million, through Pyramid Brokerage's Buffalo office. Stryker said it was closing the Gaymar operations in the Buffalo Niagara region and relocating its production lines as part of a broader strategy to cut the size of its workforce and reduce its annual pretax operating costs...