If you were grievously wounded serving your country, your medical bills just went up:
Everyone agrees that the burden of dealing with escalating health care costs should not fall on the most vulnerable, right? Democrats in particular are always at pains to convince us that they are sensitive to the needs of the less fortunate. Yet among the many new taxes Obamacare will impose is one that hits wounded veterans and sick children especially hard — the 2.3 percent annual tax on medical device manufacturers set to begin in 2013.
All of those fantastic prosthetic limbs, powered wheelchairs, stents, pacemakers, artificial hips, and other miraculous technologies that improve the lives of maimed soldiers will now be more expensive. Some estimates suggest that the tax will amount to 17 percent of profits for the industry.
That’s Mona Charen today on how the administration’s health care reform will affect two vulnerable segments of society, wounded vets and sick kids. It looks like the administration was determined to bring in a massive health care system that scratched an ideological itch. Then they had to be ruthless in finding the money. The tax on medical devices is particularly cruel-nobody buys these devices for the fun of it. The new taxes also will most likely curtail the development of new devices.
This is not a bill to tinker with-there are too many nasty surprises, too many indecent ways of raising money, and nothing to make us a healthier society.
We must hammer this truth home continually until the day comes when we can repeal this monstrosity and then reform the health care system incrementally. Incremental reform has a built-in advantage: legislators, and, indeed, members of the public, have a a chance to read bills before they become law.