Device Tax Repeal Gaining Momentum as Affordable Care Act Inches Closer to Supreme Court
BY SANDER DUNCAN, NOVEMBER 11, 2011
A movement to repeal the medical device tax is gaining momentum in Congress, even as the Affordable Care Act as a whole is upheld by a federal appeals court in Washington DC. The landmark healthcare legislation is slated to include a 2.3% tax on medical device company revenues.
Last week, 18 months after first introducing legislation to repeal the tax, the minimum number of Representatives have pledged their support for a bill seeking to repeal the tax. Two Congressmen, Erik Paulsen of Minnesota and Jim Gerlach of Pennsylvania, are leading the charge to block this tax through their Defend Medical Innovation Act. In a letter promoting the Act, the Congressmen called the tax “the most anti-innovation piece of legislation to come along in some time” while estimating a direct impact of 43,000 lost jobs should the tax go through.
But this tax is just a small portion of the Obama administration’s massive healthcare overhaul, the Affordable Care Act. Despite significant bipartisan friction over the bill’s finer points, the legislation was upheld this week by a prominent conservative jurist on the Washington DC federal appeals court, Judge Laurence Silberman. Judge Silberman represents the third appellate court to rule on the bill’s merits so far this year, and the second to uphold it.
The Supreme Court held a private conference yesterday to whether to hear cases challenging the Act on its merits, but there was no announcement or indication that the topic was even discussed. Monday is the next opportunity for the justices to decide whether they hear this case. If the court does in fact decide to move ahead, as it is expected to, oral arguments would unfold in the spring and a final judgment would come at the end of the court's term in June.
