Ron Paul: The Cruel Medical Device Tax Must Stop

In case you had not heard, the government shutdown ended yesterday as Democrats relented in their opposition to the Continuing Resolution. The Democrats struck a deal with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to bring an immigration reform bill to the floor as soon as possible. Having passed the Continuing Resolution, the House is in recess this week.

The bill includes mandatory E-Verify. Campaign for Liberty is opposed to any legislation containing this. You can help our efforts by signing your No National ID Petition to your Senators and Representative.

As mentioned last week, the Continuing Resolution also suspends Obamacare’s medical device tax, “Cadillac” tax, and death tax. Campaign for Liberty Chairman Ron Paul recently penned an op-ed for Newsweek on why the death tax should be repealed.

You can read Dr. Paul’s op-ed here and below:

Government programs, taxes, and bureaucratic mandates are the closest thing the United States has to the mythical perpetual motion machine – they keep going and never seem to stop.

Once put into place, it is rare for Congress to hit the brakes and reverse course by amending or eliminating faulty laws.

Although the medical device tax has been one of the rare exceptions, it may be nearing a comeback if Washington does not act soon.

The 2,000-page Affordable Care Act inflicted the 2.3 percent tax on medical device manufacturers, but many legislatures were not aware its existence nor the severe repercussions it would have on healthcare innovation until after its passage

The ink was barely dry on the legislation when a bipartisan coalition agreed that imposing a new tax on medical devices would harm consumers and impede technological advancement.

When I was still a member of Congress in 2012, there was a bipartisan vote in the House to repeal the tax. One year later, 79 members of the Democrat-controlled Senate voted to eliminate it as well.

Congress finally put the medical device tax on a two-year moratorium in 2016, but the suspension is set to expire this month. Now, the clock is ticking. The 115 th Congress must revisit this damaging tax while it still can.

The medical device tax is a major handicap to treating life-threatening diseases.

Since Congress imposed this levy on total sales rather than overall profits, it ties the hands of many manufacturers from meeting the needs of patients. Although 91 percent of medical device manufacturers are small or medium in size, the non-partisan Tax Foundation found that a company making just $75,000 in profits could be taxed $46,000 –  an effective corporate income tax rate of 60 percent.