This map shows a list of companies who signed the petition against the medical device tax.
The medical device tax, which will collect $20 billion from device makers over 10 years, is set to go into effect Jan. 1, 2013 and some companies are beginning to enumerate how much it will cost them.
Stung by what he believes will kill jobs and choke innovation, John Eckberg, a spokesman for the Cook Group, an Indiana-based medical device firm, decided that people really need to understand the wide swath of U.S. territory that will be affected by the device tax. He enlisted a colleague to call all 400 signatories of the letter written by the Medical Device Manufacturers Association that was sent to Congress to urge the repeal of the device tax.
And then decided to plot the impact on a map with the list of the locations of companies and their operations. Makes for a fascinating glimpse.
By Arundhati Parmar
Arundhati Parmar is the Medical Devices Reporter at MedCity News. She has covered medical technology since 2008 and specialized in business journalism since 2001. Parmar has three degrees from three continents - a Bachelor of Arts in English from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India; a Masters in English Literature from the University of Sydney, Australia and a Masters in Journalism from Northwestern University in Chicago. She has sworn never to enter a classroom again.More posts by Author
That's an interesting graphic. We did an article on the medical device tax recently at MedReps and it definitely opened the door to some heated debate. People in the industry are certainly not afraid to voice their displeasure. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.