The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of Obamacare sometime this month. Americans want to repeal all or part of the law by margin of 2 to 1. It’s no wonder, as we are living the nightmare of Nancy Pelosi’s “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.”
While we wait for the court’s decision, the president’s health care law has already become a giant discouragement to our job creators. In order to pay for the monstrous new entitlement, the bill includes several new taxes.
One example was the expanded 1099 reporting requirement that would have forced businesses to a file a tax form with the IRS every time they paid more than $600 to a vendor in a year. The provision would have particularly hurt small businesses that do not have the manpower and resources necessary for filing the additional paperwork.
Thankfully, both political parties realized that new tax was a mistake and Congress repealed the provision.
Last week, I supported legislation to repeal another Obamacare tax because it threatens life-saving innovations and Wisconsin jobs. The president’s health care law included a 2.3 percent tax on the sale of medical devices in the U.S. This is a tax on the sale of devices like knee replacements, pacemakers, and prosthetic limbs.
This tax is going to threaten thousands of jobs, even up to 43,000, according to analysts. Our economy is still lagging, with much lower-than-expected national job creation reported in May. The threat posed by this Obamacare tax in particular hits close to home for us in Wisconsin.
One of the most innovative and successful medical device makers is GE Healthcare. GE Healthcare, which has offices throughout our state, employs around 6,500 Wisconsinites — many of whom are in my district in Waukesha at one of their division headquarters.
These are good-paying jobs that bring top-notch talent to our state. Obamacare is threatening to tax these jobs right out of America and out of Wisconsin.
The chief Medicare actuary predicts that because this tax makes certain devices more expensive, the cost will hit us all with higher health care costs. For example, the dental industry estimates that the tax will increase the cost of dental care by $160 million per year.
The medical device tax will also have the deadly effect of discouraging research and development.
One has to ask, how many life-saving medical devices won’t be discovered as a result of this tax on innovation?
America has been an incubator for medical advances. But this tax, tacked on to all the other new mandates and taxes in Obamacare, threatens to reduce the amount of investment in R&D and stall future innovation at American companies.
Clearly, the argument for repeal is getting stronger as we learn more about the job-killing taxes, mandates, and budget gimmicks hidden in the law.
Regardless of the Supreme Court decision, we should repeal the law and replace it with focused, common-sense solutions that will make health care more affordable for Americans.
We will not repeat the mistakes of Democrats. We will not jam through a bill that forces us to “pass the bill to find out what is in it.” And we will not pass a law the American people don’t support or don’t want.
We will empower families and doctors to make health care decisions — not Washington bureaucrats.
As a mother, I am grateful for the Affordable Healthcare Act. MY 26 year old is covered today, through me, because of it. My child works, but healthcare is not affordable at the minimum wage job. In the meantime, I am not being forced to change my insurance. Anyone who thinks that is misinformed and needs to do a little reading. Last, it is about time our nation came up to speed and assumes equity with the basic need of healthcare. It comes down to this: living on this earth requires healthcare. No one can go without it. No one should. Those who claim that they want the option to omit healthcare will be the first to get in line if they have a bad diagnosis---something that can happen to anyone. They need to stop being selfish. By pooling our resources all of us benefit.
It doesn't happen only to the uninsured. Years ago I worked with a man who was going bankrupt because the insurance company had refused to cover his late wife's last round of chemotherapy.
Is that the sort of survival of the fittest you're okay with? Because that could be you, sick and losing everything.
So, please tell me where in the 'Affordable Healthcare Act' they found,identified and targeted these most obvious and 'self inflicted' causes/costs of healthcare, for near elimination, so my costs, and yours, go down by 50%?
As I recall, there was talk of a tax on soft drinks, which had the industry up in arms about the government taking away our freedom of choice. Another part of the high costs is overuse -- those with health insurance go to the doctor for every little thing and demand antibiotics for things like colds. That's bad medicine, and it drives up the cost for the rest of us.
No doubt we can find many areas that raise costs and individual exceptions to the rules. I'm just trying to pick the biggest and lowest hanging fruit, it just happens to be almost half the fruit on the tree. Why climb to the top of the tree?[you might fall and break your leg :) ] Here is a WSJ 2009 op-ed about Safeway grocery that explains some of this: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124476804026308603.html
The effect you claim to have seen is not widely reported: surely if legions of Americans were seeing increases in their premiums as a result of the new law, conservatives would be gleefully pointing this out! The only logical conclusion is that you are lying because you believe it will influence public opinion. Do feel free to provide specifics of your experience to refute my assertion, though. Regards, Keith Brady
Meanwhile, most folks do NOT trust Mitt!! Joan 4Obama @jmcaninch68 RT @thehill: Poll: Obama leads Romney by double digits on #healthcare issues (by @sam_baker) http://bit.ly/M1kFiv #p2