Mark E. Souder (R) Third District, 2231 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington DC 20515. Call 202-225-4436.
Winona Lake: The Boathouse Suite D, 700 Park Ave. 46590 - 574 269-1940
Web contact:
www.house.gov/souderIf you give a hoot about the future of Kosciusko County, call these guys - and any other Congressman you can think of - and tell them to get that ridiculous $4 billion-a-year tax against medical device manufacturers out of the health care bill.
I must say I am a bit concerned about it because it has the potential to really cramp the local orthopedic industry.
The bill "would impose a fee on any person that manufactures or imports medical devices offered for sale in th United States. The aggregate fee on the sector would be $4 billion payable annually beginning in 2010. ... the aggregate fee would be apportioned among the covered entities each year based on each entity's relative market share of covered domestic sales for the prior year." The bill "would require that the fee be paid on annual basis."
The tax to be assessed is determined by market share.
The orthopedic industry is a $32 billion industry worldwide. Our county accounts for roughly a third of that. That means the tax has the potential to drain $1.33 billion a year out of medical device manufacturers right here in Kosciusko County. Talk about your giant sucking sound.
Max Baucus, a Democrat Senator from Montana, proposed the tax. I guess he sees it as only fair that the orthopedic industry should have to pay - dearly - for health care reform.
The reasoning goes like this: Proponents of the tax say that if health care reform passes and millions more people have health insurance, the industry will have millions more new customers.
You know that's a nice bit of speculation, but I wonder how much - in reality - this health care reform bill is going to ramp up the orthopedic industry.
I am not fully convinced there are millions upon millions of people out there who have foregone the implantation of a medical device because they didn't have insurance, but that's just anecdotal. I don't have any data to back it up.
Nonetheless, the tax is in the bill and it stayed in the bill during the Senate Finance Committee's deliberative process. The bill has a long way to go before becoming law. The bill that comes out of the full Senate could be much different.
And after that, the Senate bill has to be reconciled with a House bill that hasn't even been crafted yet, so there is plenty of time to lean on elected officials.
But here's my concern.
One of the big problems with getting a health care bill passed is the cost. This tax mitigates the cost. To me, that means it will be one of the last things to be eliminated.
It's not like Kosciusko County has some huge lobbying influence in Washington, either. We're just one tiny little dot on the map. If the health care bill costs our bread-and-butter industry $1.33 billion a year, so be it. I can hear the lawmakers now: Those medical device manufacturers have made a lot of money and they ought to pay their fair share.
Fine. But riddle me this.
Where are these companies supposed to come up with the money? They already have the factories, the tooling, the computers, the technologies and the employees in place.
Where will they make cuts?
The bottom line? The stockholders? The sales and marketing departments? The research and development departments?
If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say all of the above.
Isn't that a wonderful thing to have foisted upon your business by the government in the midst of a recession?
So take a moment.
Make a few calls. Send a few letters. Send a few e-mails. It may not help. But it certainly can't hurt.
