A freshman member of Orange County’s delegation in Congress has attached herself to a campaign to repeal another federal tax related to healthcare reform.
Rep. Mimi Walters, R-Irvine, is co-sponsoring H.R. 928, a bill designed to repeal an annual tax assessed on health insurers based on their net premiums. The tax, which is intended to help pay for healthcare reform, raised $8 billion last year and is projected to raise $14.3 billion by 2018.
The bill was referred to the House Subcommittee on Health in February, and no further action has been taken.
Walters, meanwhile, has been taking the campaign on the road, appearing last month at her Irvine district office to talk about the tax with small-business owners.
The tax has to be repealed “so that we can make health insurance affordable. We can’t force businesses to go out of business because they can’t afford to provide healthcare,” Walters said in a news release.
A good deal of the effort has been done under the auspices of a Washington, D.C.-based group calling itself “Stop the HIT Coalition,” which says it represents small-business owners, their workers and self-employed people.
The group argues that insurers pass on the tax to consumers who receive health insurance through businesses that buy coverage instead of taking on their own insurance risks.
Walters has also attached herself to the ongoing attempt to repeal a federal tax on medical device companies’ revenues that took effect in 2013. She is a co-sponsor of the Protect Medical Innovation Act, a bill that was recently placed on the House’s “union calendar,” which schedules bills involving money issues for consideration.
OC is a major center of the medical device industry, and more than a few of the locally based companies are in Walters’ district, which was previously represented by John B. Campbell.
MemorialCare CFOs Honored
Karen Testman, chief financial officer of Fountain Valley-based MemorialCare Health System, and John Bishop, who holds the same position at MemorialCare’s Long Beach operations, are part of Becker’s Hospital Review’s “150 Hospital & Health System CFOs to Know in the U.S.”
Testman became MemorialCare’s chief financial officer in 2013 and previously was the nonprofit health system’s senior vice president of financial operations. Her career also includes serving as financial chief at Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in Fountain Valley and at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center, which has locations in Laguna Hills and San Clemente.
Bishop became senior vice president and chief financial officer of MemorialCare’s three Long Beach hospitals in 2009 and added the financial chief post for Seaside Health Plan last year. He oversees the financial operations of the Memorial Medical Center Foundation and is a former chief executive of Saddleback Memorial.
Zacks Discusses Masimo
Irvine-based patient monitor maker Masimo Corp. is getting analyst love after a good first quarter and a big patent infringement lawsuit win.
Chicago-based Zacks Equity Research examined Masimo and questioned whether now is the time to invest in the company after its price reached a 52-week high of $39.35 on June 12.
Masimo’s shares are up 50% since the start of the year. It had a recent market value of $2.03 billion.
Zacks examined Masimo’s performance piece by piece, including the patent infringement lawsuit win last month. A federal court in Delaware upheld a $467 million jury verdict in Masimo’s favor against a pair of Royal Philips Electronics NV units.
Masimo originally sued Philips Electronics North American Corp. and Philips Medizin Systeme Boblingen GMBH in 2009 for infringing on pulse oximetry patents. A jury awarded Masimo the damages last October.
“We believe this is a major win for Masimo and its existing technology,” Zacks said in its report.
The investor service also mentioned an award Masimo won for its Root patient monitoring system.
“We believe this kind of recognitions will help to increase the visibility of the [devices] and increase the existing customer base. That will, in turn, lead to higher sales in the long run.”
Gritters Joins Board
Michael Gritters, executive vice president in charge of healthcare for McCarthy Building Cos., is a new member of the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development’s Hospital Building Safety Board. He works out of the Newport Beach office of St. Louis-based McCarthy.
