By Sean Hackbarth
When Senators come back to Washington, D.C. this fall, one thing on their plate will be repealing the medical device tax:
The Senate will make an effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act’s medical-device tax before the end of the calendar year, according to a Republican and Democratic aide.
The House passed a repeal measure in June with bipartisan support, but until now, there have been few signs of movement in the Senate.
The repeal bill now moving its way through the Senate is not identical to the House measure, but rather a tax-repeal bill introduced by Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch in January, the Democratic aide said. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is the lead Democrat working on moving the measure forward, the aide added.
A McConnell spokesman said that a vote on the medical device tax repeal has not been scheduled yet, “but it’s something we’d like to get done, of course.”
In June, with a bipartisan, veto-proof margin, the House voted to repeal the 2.3% tax on medical device sales.
