Medical Device Tax Repeal

Paulsen’s medical device tax repeal bill garners near veto-proof House majority

from  Jim Spencer Star Tribune

White House threatened to veto Paulsen-sponsored legislation without a revenue offset.

WASHINGTON – The House on Thursday voted to repeal a medical device tax that Minnesota’s medical technology sector lobbied extensively to kill.

Rep. Erik Paulsen, R-Minn., the bill’s lead sponsor, expressed delight at the lopsided 280-140 vote. “I knew support was broad and deep” to get rid of the 2.3 percent tax on device sales, Paulsen told the Star Tribune.

Minnesota’s other Republican representatives, John Kline and Tom Emmer, voted to kill the tax, as did three of the state’s five Democratic congressmen — Rick Nolan, Collin Peterson and Tim Walz. Concerns about the tax’s impact on jobs and innovation drove their votes.

Democrats Keith Ellison and Betty McCollum voted against repeal, both saying that they support ending the tax, but believe there must be a way to replace the revenue it produces.

Several Republican representatives missed the vote to travel to South Carolina to address a racially motivated mass murder in a church. If they had voted, Paulsen said, “there would have been a veto-proof majority.”

That level of support could eventually be necessary because on Monday, the White House threatened a veto of Paulsen’s bill in its current form.

The legislation’s lack of an alternative revenue source is a sticking point with President Obama and many Democrats because the device tax helps pay for the Affordable Care Act. Without another funding stream, repeal would add a projected $24.4 billion to the federal deficit over 10 years.

So the fate of device tax repeal remains uncertain not only in the White House, but also the Senate.

Still, Thursday’s vote showed the device industry’s lobbying muscle. Paulsen received $109,000 in campaign contribution from supporters of repeal in the 2012-2014 election cycle, more than any other member of Congress, according to the open records group Maplight. Paulsen’s district includes several big med tech firms. He has led the charge against the device tax since it was approved in 2010 as part of the Affordable Care Act.

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Read the article here
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This could have been a blow to Obamacare. I don’t know who missed the vote to travel to South Carolina, but they should have stayed to vote. Without this tax, Obamacare would have been given one more nail in it’s coffin. Now Obama will veto it and nothing (again) will be done about getting this behemoth killed and buried.

I don’t see Minnesota’s two Senate Democrat Obama lackies fighting for this.

Prove me wrong, Franken and Klobuchar. But my bet is they will hold off until they can get some kind of “responsible offset.” That means find another way to tax something to pay for it so it doesn’t hurt Obamacare.