Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster.
Insurance premiums have skyrocketed – year, after year, after year. Insurance deductibles have skyrocketed – year, after year, after year. More and more insurance providers have left Obamacare – year, after year, after year.
And year, after year, after year – Republicans promised us a full repeal of the very awful Obamacare. They won House and Senate majorities – in no small part because of said promise.
Then We the People delivered DC the final piece in the puzzle – a Republican President. Donald Trump was sworn in in January.
And then the Republican Senate – couldn’t pass even their minimalist semi-pseudo repeal.
Having failed at the full monty, Republicans have begun to turn to piecemeal repeal. Undoing specific parts of the atrocious whole.
We are in the hopefully home stretch of tax reform. The Senate-House Reconciliation bill – contains a repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate to purchase a horrifically awful Obamacare health insurance policy.
The House of Representatives recently passed – in bipartisan fashion – a repeal of awful Obamacare’s awful Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).
The notorious IPAB – brilliantly christened the “Death Panel” by Sarah Palin – gives unelected, unaccountable government bureaucrats unilateral authority to decide whether Americans live or die.
Do you get government money for your life-saving medical care – or do you not? Do you live – or die? Obamacare’s IPAB – gets to decide.
Remember how awfully (and illegally) the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) treated conservatives and less government types? Imagine those same less government types – asking IPAB for life-saving medical care.
The Senate should follow the House’s lead – and repeal the awful IPAB. I’d bet all the money in my pockets President Trump will sign.
You know what else in Obamacare desperately needs repeal? Besides the entire awful thing? The really, really stupid Medical Device Tax (MDT).
Those of us who understand money and human nature – knew right away the MDT was going to do significant damage to the medical device industry.
Obamacare’s Medical-Device Excise Tax: Early Evidence Suggests Significant Harm
People who don’t grasp money and human nature – like the media?
Keep Medical Device Tax: Our View – USA Today
We who understand money and human nature…were right (as we nigh always are).
Medical Device Groups Blame ObamaCare Tax for Job Losses
Obamacare Tax on Medical Devices Hurts Jobs and Health
Obamacare’s Most Unfair Tax: “Among the many flaws in the federal Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, this is among the worst: the medical device tax that unfairly penalizes companies…that employ thousands of people in good-paying jobs.
“This tax is an excise tax, which is usually imposed by the government on products it wants to discourage, such as alcohol and cigarettes. In the case of the medical device tax, it is intended simply as a money generator to help finance Obamacare.
“But its impact has been to discourage job creation and innovation. This damage will only increase with time.”
In December 2015, Congress temporarily understood money and human nature – and passed a two year moratorium on the MDT.
That moratorium ends…December 31. As in just over two weeks from now.
If it was a good idea to remove the MDT for two years – and it absolutely was – than removing it permanently is an even better idea.
If it’s a bad idea – it’s a bad idea.
The MDT – is a really bad idea.
And these temporary bans – keep medical device companies permanently in the lurch.
It’s tough to plan your company’s future – with the government constantly changing the taxes and laws that determine your fate.
Congress should make the MDT abolition permanent – before this temporary abolition ends.
This first appeared in Red State.