U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) reintroduced a bill to repeal the 2.3% federal excise tax on medical device sales, with a new co-sponsor. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) has signed on to co-sponsor, replacing Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who did not run for re-election last fall.
The medical device tax went into effect in 2013 and has been suspended twice. One two-year pause ended in January 2018 and the second moratorium is due to expire at the end of 2019. The tax on the sale of most medical technologies was enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act. It tax applies to medtech companies’ revenues, not profits. In 2018, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to repeal the tax 283-132, but the Senate failed to act.
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