Barrasso: Obamacare Raises Costs, Kills Jobs

President Barack Obama’s health spending law is destroying jobs nationwide. That at least is the assertion of Wyoming Senator John Barrasso who recently sounded off against the $20 billion medical device tax that is attached to the President’s health legislation.

In fact, in his recent statement, Barrasso cited a report, saying that the medical device tax will end 43,000 American jobs and cut development of medical technologies. Barrasso added that the loss of development of medical technologies will in turn raise health-care costs.

“Recently columnist George Will wrote about how the President’s law will impact Cook Medical. He explained in his column that the Democratic Congress ‘included in the legislation a 2.3% tax on gross revenue.’  Not profits. We’re talking gross revenue. ‘which generally amounts to about a 15% tax on most manufacturing profits from U.S. sales and medical devices beginning in 2013.’

“This will be piled, as he says, ‘on top of the 35% corporate tax plus state and local taxes.’  Mr. Will went on to say, ‘this 2.3% tax will be a $20 billion blow to an industry that employs more are than 400,000 people and $20 billion is almost double the industry’s annual investment in research and development.’

“Well, we want them to do research. We want new and innovative treatments that will actually help people.

Instead, this administration, the Democrats in Congress and the House and the Senate and the President of the United States, put a 2.3% tax $20 billion blow to those who do the research and the development.”

Barrasso gave this message yesterday on the floor of the U.S. Senate, where he urged Congress to support and voiced his support for Utah Senator Orrin Hatch’s legislation that would repeal President Obama’s medical device tax before its scheduled 2013 beginning. The Wyoming Senator added that the tax, “…is going to lead to fewer jobs, but also fewer pain-reducing and life-extending devices, stents, and other things.”

“If the administration wants to get serious about reducing regulatory burdens and about creating good jobs, then the President should start today by repealing his onerous medical device tax.

Not only will this device tax suppress job creation and limit economic growth, it will also slow and perhaps even stop research and development into new lifesaving medical devices.

“We must take action to repeal this anti-competitive job-destroying device tax before it begins to take effect in 2013.”

As a former orthopedic surgeon in Wyoming, Senator Barrasso has a vested interest in the United States health care industry. During his remarks to the Senate, he mentioned several companies he had worked with while working as a Wyoming surgeon, companies who have been forced to relocate to other countries and cut American jobs because of the health care tax. Senator Barrasso is a co-sponsor of Senator Hutchinson’s legislation, S. 17.