Regardless of who wins the hotly contested Senate race in Indiana, it looks like the new lawmaker will be a vote for repeal of the medical device tax in the Upper House.
During a debate this week candidates Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) and GOP counterpart Indiana state treasurer Richard Mourdock, a Tea Party candidate who edged out Sen. Richard Lugar in the GOP primary this fall, both claimed the mantle of opposition to the 2.3% medical device tax.
Mourdock credited Donnelly with being opposed to the excise tax, which is slated to take effect in January, but said that the Congressman has eroded his position by casting 2 votes in favor of the Affordable Care Act.
"Mr. Donnelly came out early, to your credit, to say that we ought not include a medical device tax as part of that bill, but then you voted for the bill that included that tax," Mourdock said. "Then you came back and said we ‘oughta put a bill together to get rid of that’ and then again you voted for the approval [of the ACA]. Again you’re saying we ought to do away with the medical device tax. Clearly we ought to do away with the medical device tax. We ought to do away with all of Obamacare."
Donnelly, who called himself a champion of the medical technology industry, was one of 36 Democratic members of the House of Representatives to vote in favor of passing Rep. Erik Paulsen’s (R-Minn.) device tax repeal bill, the Protect Medical Innovation Act of 2012, or H.R. 436.
"I’ve been thanked repeatedly by [medical device] companies for my work in trying to reduce the tax and to try and eliminate the medical device tax," Donnelly said. "They have repeatedly thanked me for the hard work that we’ve put in. .. for my support in reducing the tax."
Murdock leads Donnelly in the polls 47 to 42, according to an Oct. 11 Rasmussen Reports survey taken before the debate.
Whichever candidate wins, it is unlikely that his vote will move the needle in favor of repeal. Outgoing Rep. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who represented the Hoosier state and its vast contingent of medical device companies for nearly 36 years, was a staunch opponent of the tax. He is one of 33 co-sponsors of a bill filed in January 2011 by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), S17 or the "Medical Device Access and Innovation Protection Act," which calls for the repeal of the excise tax.