House to Vote on Device Tax Repeal Today

The U.S. House of Representatives is planning to vote this afternoon on the repeal of the medical device tax.

The Health Care Cost Reduction Act of 2012 would repeal the 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales receipts in excess of $5 million for manufacturers and importers of certain medical devices, including defibrillators, pacemakers and prosthetic limbs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the tax set to take effect Jan. 1 would raise nearly $30 billion in revenue between 2013 and 2022.

Even if the bill passes the House, the chances of the same thing passing in the Senate are low.

Republicans and quite a few Democrats (mostly from medical device manufacturing hubs suchs as Massachusetts, Minnesota and California) backing the bill cite a study released by AdvaMed that warns that the tax could result in higher prices for some medical devices and the loss of up to 43,000 manufacturing jobs.

White House officlal oppose repealing the tax on medical device manufacturers because it would pass the law’s costs off to low- and middle-income Americans.

The vote comes just weeks before the Supreme Court is set to rule on its constitutionality of the healthcare reform bill passed in 2010. Congress already has repealed other parts of the law in a bipartisan fashion, including a provision that would have expanded the range of purchases that businesses must report to the Internal Revenue Service and a “glitch” that would have allowed up to 3 million middle-class Americans to enroll in Medicaid.