MedicalL-Device Industry Warns Tax Proposal Would Harm Innovation

October 14, 2009

The Washington Post reports, "As it turns out, the day the Senate Finance Committee voted to approve its health-care reform bill was the same day that about 1,400 workers and executives in the medical-device industry convened in Washington to talk shop." Under the bill approved on Tuesday, the medical-device industry "would pay a total of $40 billion over 10 years." Players in the industry "warned that the tax would harm their ability to innovate." Mark B. Leahey, president and chief executive of the Washington-based Medical Device Manufacturers Association, said "many companies could go under if the proposed tax is enacted." Leahey said, "This is not an industry like the pharmaceutical industry, where innovation often comes from deep-pocketed conglomerates. ... The real research and development in this industry comes from small players who are just struggling to get by."