Did You Know...

**Written by Doug Powers

Thirty-seven House Democrats joined Republicans last month in voting to repeal the medical device tax in Obamacare. The bill is now sitting in the Senate, where Republicans who support repealing the tax are doing so because it will cost thousands of jobs as well as force companies to cut R & D, etc.

Here’s the latest fallout:

An Indiana company’s decision to scrap expansion plans due to a looming tax on medical devices has renewed pressure on the Senate to consider a House-passed bill repealing the tax.

House Speaker John Boehner, in a written statement, urged the Senate to take up the bill “as soon as possible.”

Companies in the medical device industry for months have been calling on Congress to strip the provision. Amid the complaints, though, several firms have already taken steps to cut back U.S. investment out of concern for the tax’s impact.

Cook Medical, an Indiana-based medical equipment manufacturer, last week said it’s nixing plans to open five new plants in the next five years — claiming the tax will cost between $15 million and $30 million a year, cutting into money that would otherwise go toward expanding into new facilities in the Midwest.

“Unfortunately, we have had to shelve these expansion plans and look overseas for that,” Allison Giles, vice president for federal affairs with the company, told FoxNews.com. “It’s a huge amount for us.”

Could news like this prompt more senators to join the device tax repeal? Probably not enough of them. If you were to tell somebody like Harry Reid that people are losing their jobs because of the ACA’s medical device tax, he’d probably retort, “and thanks to us they won’t lose their health care too!”

In other health care news…

**Written by Doug Powers

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