Did you think that the fighting over Obamacare might have ended with the Supreme Court's
King v. Burwell decision upholding federal subsidies to every qualified enrollee? Ha! As long as there's a Republican majority in the House, there will be repeal votes because that's the only thing they've been able to perfect in five years of leadership. On this next one, though, they've got the backing of some of the Senate's staunchest liberal Democrats, a position those senators need to rethink. At issue is the
medical device tax, a 2.3 percent levy on manufacturers on the sale of medical devices which will raise nearly $30 billion in funding for Obamacare in the next decade.
The House has already voted to repeal the tax, and Senate Republicans are weighing the best timing for a vote to undo the levy, which helps underwrite the health law. President Barack Obama would almost certainly veto a stand-alone repeal, but with a number of Democrats also opposed to the tax, lawmakers think they may be close to having the votes needed to override the president, or insist the tax be rolled back as part of a grand bargain on spending bills later this year. […]
"This is a tax on manufacturing, and I've always been in favor of eliminating it," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, one of five Democratic co-sponsors of the Senate repeal bill, though supporters expect as many as 20 Democrats may vote for it.
Now in effect for more than two years, the tax was among the duties placed on industries that stood to benefit from the health overhaul. Its proponents argue it is a fair fee for medical-device manufacturers that have seen their markets expand as more Americans have signed up for health coverage. Other industries, such as the pharmaceutical industry, made financial concessions to help augment health benefits, said Jon Kingsdale, the former executive director of the Massachusetts health exchange and now a director at Wakely Consulting Group in Boston. “Medical-device companies were pretty much the only major group that refused,” he said.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) also supports the repeal, but she says she will vote against it unless a replacement funding mechanism is created. Sen. Al Franken (D-MI) is another supporter of the repeal. These senators all have device manufacturers in their states, so their position is explainable if still wrong-headed. The larger issue of healthcare reform—and any chance of further, necessary reforms—will be undercut substantially if segments of the industry are let off the hook for helping to fund it. It's bad precedent for any future reforms, not to mention bad policy to give oxygen to
any Republican Obamacare repeal effort.