Taxing Our Hearts And Valves

Because they wouldn't play ball with him Obama plans to tax manufacturing jobs out of existence in Indiana. At least those manufacturers who make medical devices. That's some hope and change, there. Chicago politics at its best. Hope the people of Indiana remember this come 2012. Especially those folks who need prosthetics of one sort or another. From The Hill comes this bit of news concerning the people who refused to play ball with the Capo di Tutti Capo now in the White House.

The more the fiscal details of the healthcare bills emerge, the more appalling they seem. The Senate Finance Committee bill includes a broad provision taxing all manner of medical devices. This tax includes such frivolous luxuries as pacemakers, stents, artificial heart valves, defibrillators, automated wheelchairs, mechanized artificial limbs, replacement hips and knees, surgical gurneys, laparoscopic equipment and the like.

President Obama is planning to reduce the cost of medical care by taxing it!


The most recent Gallup Poll reflected that 49 percent of respondents said they believed that the ObamaCare plan will increase their healthcare costs. Only about 20 percent said it would lower them. It is taxes like these that substantiate this kind of concern.

The origins of this new medical device tax are troubling as well.

The medical device industry had its day at the White House, as did the insurance industry, the drug makers, the nurses and the doctors. In turn, each group heard the White House request that it come up with voluntary cuts in its healthcare costs and support Obama’s proposed changes in return for assurances that Congress would not impose deeper cuts (or, in the case of the doctors, that it would actually rescind cuts already scheduled under current statutes).

But, unlike all these other groups, the medical device industry refused the deal. This posture enraged the tyrants in the White House, who vowed to punish the industry with cuts imposed by Congress. The result was a decision by the revenue-hungry Senate Finance Committee to extract billions in funds from the industry.

For those of you that thought he'd be a breathe of fresh air....feh. There's no such thing in Chicago. What we had foisted on us was gangster government at its finest. And now we'll all pay for your mistakes.

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Taxation, Healthcare, Gangster Government, Libertarian