[niggler]

There are many americans working at medical device companies that will be affected by the 2.3% medical device tax. Zimmer, for example, cited the medical device tax as the reason for firing a thousand workers a few years ago.

[onli]

I don't know that case. Normally, such claims are a lie (using an opportunity to reorganise the company to exploit the workers more) and it seems highly unlikely that 2,3% on anything could lead to that. So the margin before was that thin that the tax lead to thousand workers being more expensive than productive? That is highly unlikey, especially with medical device companies.

And besides, it doesn't invalidate the ethical point that it is right to privide medical insurance, even if true.

[niggler]

To clarify: it is an excise tax and applies to the _gross sale price_, not the profits (so even if the division runs at a loss, they still have to pay). http://www.irs.gov/uac/Medical-Device-Excise-Tax:-Frequently... I'd agree with your skepticism if it were affecting net (after employee salaries etc).

> And besides, it doesn't invalidate the ethical point that it is right to privide medical insurance, even if true.

Your original point was "There are no good reasons to be against the Act", so my response was pointing to a reason why someone would be against the act: I'm pretty sure that being laid off due to a regulation is a pretty good reason to be unhappy

[cecilpl]

> To clarify: it is an excise tax and applies to the _gross sale price_, not the profits (so even if the division runs at a loss, they still have to pay). http://www.irs.gov/uac/Medical-Device-Excise-Tax:-Frequently.... I'd agree with your skepticism if it were affecting net (after employee salaries etc)

AKA a sales tax. Which don't generally lead to broad-scale layoffs when they're imposed. Did California have massive layoffs when they raised their tax on everything in the entire economy in January? How about when Canada introduced a brand new 7% across the board sales tax in 1991?

As a business, the standard way of responding to that kind of tax is to raise your prices correspondingly (to an appropriate level set by your supply/demand curves of course).