Device lobby firm AdvaMed has been pushing hard to repeal the 2.3 percent tax on revenue that most device companies will have to pay starting in January.
It has held a tweet up, issued reports and taken medical device executives to Capitol Hill to persuade lawmakers to repeal this aspect of the Affordable Care Act.
Now it’s getting some help from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia). MinnPost is reporting that Eric Cantor appeared on Fox News and declared that the 2.3 percent device tax should be on the fiscal cliff negotiating table. That should put a smile on the face of the folks at AdvaMed even as analysts believe that the odds of a device tax repeal was low to begin with and have dropped since President Obama’s reelection.
“There’s taxes on the medical device industry that cause people to lose access perhaps to certain kinds of treatment. That will actually provide a lot of harm to job growth in a very growing industry in this country — the medical device area. …,” Cantor told Fox News Monday.
That description appears to be hyperbolic; yes, many device firms are cutting jobs and some may be to offset costs associated with the device tax, but there is no evidence that core, medical innovation jobs are being cut. That would be foolish. In fact, the 300 positions that St. Jude Medical announced it planned to cut a few months ago were described by analysts as a move likely to offset the device tax burden, but the positions were administrative, support roles.
But Cantor is not taking aim at just the medical device tax. He told Fox News that the whole healthcare law “ought to be” up for debate in the fiscal cliff negotiations. Looks like Cantor hasn’t received the memo that other GOP-ers did who are looking to take a piecemeal approach to repealing portions of the Affordable Care Act having realized that trying to get a wholesale repeal of Obamacare is now about as realistic as pigs flying.
Meanwhile, AdvaMed recently came out with this infographic to show how the device tax harms the medtech industry.
