There is little difference between supporting President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform measures in general and supporting the 2.3% tax on medical devices specifically, according to an editorial written by Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), a frequent supporter of the medtech industry.
Coats offers little immunity to members of the Democratic party who voted in favor of the Affordable Care Act but who express dissatisfaction with the medical device levy, which takes effect in January.
"The impacts of this tax are staggering, but should come as no surprise to those who supported the law," Coats wrote in an editorial for Politico. "Despite a recent change of heart by some, congressional Democrats voted for President Obama’s deeply flawed health care law and the harmful tax on Indiana’s medical device industry."
That’s enough for Dan Coats to support driving Democrats out of the White House and Senate.
Based on reported layoffs, manufacturing plants that should have been built in the U.S. and impending outsourcing from medtech companies, Coats warns that "President Obama and supporters of Obamacare are raiding medical device manufacturers to help pay for the health care law."
Efforts to spike the medical device tax have failed to garner much support among Democrats and a repeal bill that made it to the House floor earlier this year failed as blue members balked at the bill’s pay-for, which targeted low- and middle-income families to make up for the approximately $30 billion the tax is expected to raise over 10 years.
A handful of House Democrats said at the time that they would support a motion to spike the medical device levy that didn’t unfairly shift the burden families facing difficult circumstances.
Perhaps the mostly noteworthy Democrat who turned her back on the medical device tax was Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, who wrote in an editorial for MassDevice.com that "with an appropriate offset, we can repeal the medical device tax without cutting health care coverage for millions of people or forcing Americans to fight the whole health care battle all over again."
That’s too little and too late for Coats, who called Democratic support for both healthcare reform and device tax repeal a measure of dishonesty.
"The narrative of Democrats who run for federal office in Indiana and other more conservative states is well known," he wrote. "They say one thing at home but then do another thing when in Washington alongside Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi."
"Despite a recent change of heart by some, congressional Democrats voted for President Obama’s deeply flawed health care law and the harmful tax on Indiana’s medical device industry," Coats concluded. "The good news is that Americans can help correct this damage in November by changing the leadership in the White House and the Senate."