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I would imagine the tax would affect the consumer, and ultimately the insurance company because the tax would be passed along to the consumer, and/or then to insurance.

Can you explain about the layoffs, or a cutback in production? If the doctor says you need a pacemaker, and this year the pacemaker costs more than last year (because of this hidden tax.) Is the patient going to say, well since it’s going to cost me more out of pocket, I won’t get it. Or if the insurance company denies to cover the cost and the patient dies...instant lawsuit.

Or is it because some devices are considered optional?

I have an implanted medical device... a baclofen pump (made by Medtronics.) It the only reason I can still walk, so I’d beg, borrow, or steal (well probably not steal) in order to get the device.

But it would be one of the more “optional” choices in devices because I could resort to a wheelchair and lots of anti-spasticity meds and pain pills. Which in turn means I’d be so drugged up I probably wouldn’t be able to work, which means I’d go on disability and get SS disability, which means the gov’t would be paying me instead of me contributing to the tax revenue they get from my salary...oh what a tangled web, etc.

So I guess I can see where some devices might be considered optional. Is that why there’d be layoffs?

I’m glad to hear your baclofen pump helps your condition as much as you say. Through my work I am also very involved with this product.

The idiocy of this tax has no limits. The tax is passed on to the consumer. The patients insurer pays the tax. It’s a way the government can get paid by private insurers. The coming deal will probably be that the tax will be forgiven if the patient has government insurance.

Our devices are different, the hospital is the end-user. Insurance isn’t part of our equation. (as an aside, I had a Medtronic spinal stimulator put in on the 11th of Oct, removed on the 30th due to complications! :( )

Our product holds medications. The hospital nursing staff use our product. The Obamacare tax hits us hard.
Layoffs help ‘streamline’ our cost structure when dividends drop so the investor’s numbers look better. It has happened in the past and is bound to happen again.