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This week, iWatch News ran an article on the continued efforts of the device industry to reduce their contributions to healthcare reform. The article traces the history of these efforts, from the initial $40 billion excise tax that was reduced to $20 billion, to the current attempt to get the excise tax portion of the bill overturned altogether.
Barring success in this arena, the device industry is now aggressively lobbying the IRS in an attempt to extend the classification of products that would be exempt from this tax. Exemptions would be afforded typically to any item that would be considered as “retail”, a classification that the device industry is contending should be extended to “devices from wheelchairs and scooters to home oxygen systems.”
HIGPA President Curtis Rooney, along with the American Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals and the Catholic Health Association of the United States, have also reached out the IRS (covered here on this blog) with a letter stating that “device manufacturers should be prohibited from passing on the excise tax to consumers, especially if they are allowed to deduct the excise tax when calculating their federal income tax.”
Allowing device manufacturers to write off the tax and pass along the cost, the letter says, would “permit a financial ‘double-dip’ that could leave device companies in a better financial position than before the [health law] was enacted.”