Wingnut Wendy Long has to win a Republican primary in June to become the challenger to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, but she's acting like the nominee already.
Today, she ignored her two primary opponents and launched a weak, stupid attack on Gillibrand.
Jimmy Vielkind of the Albany Times Union put the Long press release on the TU's political blog:
Taking the recent Supreme Court arguments over the constitutionality of the 2010 federal health care law as a hook, Republican Senate hopeful Wendy Long is attacking Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s support for the measure, sometimes called Obamacare, by pointing to its impact on medical device manufacturers.
Long’s aides put out an industry-funded report honing in on the law's 2.3 percent tax on medical devices — some of which are produced in Warren and Washington counties. The report estimated a $3 billion hit on the industry, meaning a loss of 39,000 jobs nationwide.
Wingnut Republican attacking a Democratic Senator based on an industry-funded report -- what could go wrong with that?
Just about everything.
Details, below.
First of all, Wingnut Wendy's weak attack is based on a report paid for by AdvaMed, the medical device trade association.
Evidently, Wingnut Wendy argues in her press release that a modest 2.3 percent tax on extravagantly priced medical devices would lead to the loss of 39,000 jobs nationwide in the industry.
That's certainly not true, or even knowable, but even so, that job loss guess (2 percent of national industry employment) in the industry-funded report is not just based on the modest sales tax.
From the report (at the TU link above):
At the request of AdvaMed, Battelle developed an economic scenario to model the impacts of a potential change in the industry stemming from an economic “event” that changes the business environment for the medical technology industry. ...
If this (hypothesized by industry-funded researchers) economic event were to become permanent, the industry baseline economic parameters would be reset by the amount of this one-year impact going forward. These potential revenue changes can come from a number of sources; examples include increasing or decreasing foreign competition, new breakthrough devices or instrumentation, changes in federal and state health care reimbursement policies, or changes in competitive pricing or demand occurring via business climate changes (such as taxes).
Taxes are just one input among many in the industry-bought "event" model that leads to Wingnut Wendy ludicrously claiming that Gillibrand kills jobs.
By supporting health care reform that will ultimately save lives, and money.
The "potential revenue changes" are pretty vague in the industry-funded report -- sounds to me like the normal price pressures that would develop in a competitive, highly profitable industry.
And the 2.3 percent tax, which would be used to partially support expansion of health insurance coverage under the ACA, is surely something manufacturers will be able to absorb and/or pass on with little trouble.
Medical device manufacturers, assuming their devices are effective, will be very profitable businesses in the near future, as baby boomers come to need stents made in Washington County, new knees and hips, pacemakers, etc.
Wingnut Wendy is tooting her tea party horn by lying about health care in this press release, which may well help her get the Paladino vote (34 percent).
But Wingnut Wendy won't get, or deserve, much more than that.