Despite not getting much coverage during the U.S. presidential race, the Medical Device tax has become a hot topic for a handful of Congressional races across the country.
The 2.3% medical device tax, enacted as part of Obamacare in 2010, took effect at the beginning of 2013 but was tabled for 2 years last December as part of an omnibus tax and spending bill. The tax, a levy on all U.S. sales of prescribed medical devices, is slated to go back into effect at the beginning of 2018.
In Virginia’s 10th Congressional District, Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock highlighted the tax in a television ad. The advertisement claims that Comstock’s opponent, Democrat LuAnn Bennett, supports taxes on health insurance and medical devices.
In California, Democratic incumbent Rep. Scott Peters references his anti-tax efforts to repeal or delay the device tax in a mailed campaign advertisement. Peters claims he led the effort to block the tax that “hurts industry R&D and job creation,” according to Kaiser Health News.
In a turn from the usual, the National Republican Congressional Committee produced an advertisement attacking Minnesota Democrat Rep. Angie Craig for opposing the tax and “seeking a special exemption for her industry,” despite the party’s oppositional stance to the tax.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s administration would reportedly repeal the medical device tax, according to former Health & Human Services Dept. secretary Tommy Thompson. The statement was made at the annual AdvaMed conference in Minneapolis last month.
A representative from the campaign of Trump opponent Hilary Clinton, Aneesh Chopra, said Clinton doesn’t have a comment 1 way or the other but “has a long history of negotiating with Congress to move her priorities forward, and everything will be considered while she and her transition team determine how to pass healthcare legislation in 2017 and beyond,” Bloomberg BNA reported.
Rep. Erik Paulsen (R.-Minn.), who worked both sides of the aisle for years with multiple bids to repeal the tax, told MassDevice.com last year that the 2-year suspension gave the levy’s opponents a 2-year window to push for full repeal.
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