Is there one simple way to discourage invention and innovation, drive up costs, eliminate jobs, help foreign competitors at the expense of American businesses, and generally make this weak economic recovery even weaker?
Sure there is, and you can count on this administration to find it. This time it’s a 2.3 percent tax on every sale made by American manufacturers of modern medical devices-like pacemakers, defibrillators, artificial joints, heart stents, chemotherapy delivery systems … you name it.
The new tax is due to take effect after the first of the year as one of the endless provisions of the ironically titled Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. And like so many of other taxes, regulations and/or restrictions, this one isn’t likely to protect patients or make medical care any more affordable.
Quite the contrary. It’s a sure way to drive up the cost of everything in health care from artificial joints to kits that test blood-sugar: Just raise the tax on any and all medical devices. Specifically, by 2.3 percent — even more, when you take into account the cost of paying, collecting, enforcing and administering the new tax.
The only discernible effect of this new tax on medical devices, as with so many new taxes, will be to increase their price and decrease their availability.