The push to repeal a federal tax on medical device makers’ revenue surfaced in the U.S. Senate in the days leading up to the government shutdown.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he would try to offer an amendment to a stopgap funding measure in the Senate that would repeal the unpopular tax.
The 2.3% tax on medical device makers’ revenue started at the beginning of the year. Supporters bill it as a way to raise about $30 million toward paying for healthcare reform.
Devices such as eyeglasses, contact lenses and hearing aids are exempt.
Any repeal attempt will be met with disdain from the Obama administration, which has said it wouldn’t agree to it as part of stopgap government funding.
Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the main authors of a repeal bill in the Senate, were wary of linking the device tax to a government funding venue.
Klobuchar told Politico.com that it isn’t part of the strategy, and Hatch suggested a better venue would be in proposed negotiations to raise the federal debt ceiling.
California’s senators, Democrats Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, are not co-sponsoring the Klobuchar-Hatch device-tax repeal bill.
Senators on a 79-20 vote already approved a nonbinding measure to repeal the tax, according to a story published on The Hill.com’s On the Money website.
The measure came up during the Senate’s budget resolution debate earlier this year.
Attempts to repeal the device tax were active in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives earlier this year.
Reps. Ron Kind, D-Wis., and Erik Paulsen, R-Minn., reintroduced legislation to get rid of the levy.
The House bill now has 261 cosponsors, including Reps. John Campbell, R-Irvine, Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, and Edward Royce, R-Fullerton.
Republican Reps. Darrell Issa and Ken Calvert, whose districts cover small portions of South County, are also co-sponsoring.
Orange County is a major center of the medical device industry, with many companies in Campbell’s district.
Original sponsors Paulsen and Kind represent suburban areas of their states that are touched by the device industry, particularly Paulsen. Medtronic Inc. and St. Jude Medical Inc., which also have OC operations, are based in the Minneapolis area.
Speakers Dish on Benefit Exchange
Steven Sell, chief executive of Health Net Inc.’s Western Region Health Plan, and Dr. Micah Weinberg, senior policy adviser for San Francisco-based business organization Bay Area Council, will appear at a Nov. 8 presentation hosted by the Center for Health Care Management and Policy at the University of California, Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business to discuss Covered California, the state’s new health benefit exchange.
Covered California provides a way for state residents to buy health insurance if they’re unable to obtain it through their employers.
It opened for business Oct. 1 after two years of preparation, while exchanges in other states are reportedly having problems and weren’t able to open on time.
Sell and Weinberg are expected to address several questions related to the exchange.
CureDuchenne Looks for Drug Discovery
CureDuchenne, a Newport Beach-based nonprofit organization, said it established CureDuchenne Ventures to identify and develop therapies to cure Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Males and females can be carriers, but symptoms overwhelmingly appear in males. Some 300,000 boys are affected worldwide, according to CureDuchenne.
The group has raised more than $11 million toward research to find a cure for the disease. The first research project it’s funding is a collaboration with Texas-based Lexicon Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Lexicon’s LX2931 drug candidate is being evaluated for its potential to regenerate muscles in animal studies for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. CureDuchenne said it wanted to raise $5 million toward clinical development of the drug to treat the disease.
Bits and Pieces
Pacific Dental Services Inc., an Irvine-based company that provides business and administrative services to dental offices, said it appeared on Inc. magazine’s 500/5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America. Pacific is ranked 3,898 on the list. … Fountain Valley-based Nobles Medical Technologies II received a U.S. patent for a device and method of suturing.
