Senate Votes (Again) To Repeal Device Tax

The United States Senate voted 53-47 last week to defund several key provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the 2.3 percent sales tax levied against the medical device industry since 2013. The bill will now move back to the House of Representatives for approval before moving on to President Obama’s desk, where it is expected to be vetoed.

In order to pass the bill with a simple majority of 51 rather than a filibuster-proof 60, drafters of the bill used a tool called budget reconciliation, a fast-tracking process that also prevents any attachments to the bill prior to a vote.

While the bill is not written to repeal the ACA entirely, it does vote to defund several of the ACA’s main sources of funding, including the medical device tax, which many claim has stifled innovation and job growth.

In an editorial published in The Hill, John Eckberg, director of media relations for Cook Group, wrote that the medical device tax was the “dumbest” in the history of public policy, and that it was alone responsible for the loss of 120,000 jobs and $1.8 billion dollars in R&D spending, which has caused innovation to “slow to a trickle.”

In October, Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman, called the bill an opportunity to take a “big step toward dismantling Obamacare,” even though congressional members on both side of the issue fully expect a presidential veto.

“What they’re doing on this reconciliation is just going nowhere,” said Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to CNN.  “They want to do this to satisfy a few radical right-wing people who they have joined forces with.” Reid called the move a “charade” that would never make law.

Supporters of the bill see its voyage all the way to the White House proof enough of its eventual success and many have stated that a new administration is all that is required to repeal the ACA forever.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) told CNN, a president “prepared to support health reform” would sign the bill. Presuming the next U.S. president will be Republican, Sessions added that the bill would pass after next year’s presidential election, forcing a “bipartisan reevaluation of health care in America.”

Other supporters pointed out that many election and re-election campaigns were hinged on the promise to get rid of the ACA, and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) told the Washington Post that this reconciliation bill was the only way of doing that. However, some political experts speculate that support of the bill could do more harm than good to reelection hopefuls in more moderate districts.

Ryan—who is the newly elected speaker of the House of Representatives—told CBS that in order to move forward as a party, Republicans would need to offer voters concrete solutions to problems facing Americans.

“If we want to save the country, then we need a mandate from the people. And if we want a mandate, we need to offer ideas. And if we want to offer ideas, then we need to actually have ideas,” said Ryan.

According to Ryan, Republicans will introduce a plan to replace the ACA next year, though he was not specific about what that plan might look like.