Wendell Potter: Industry lobbies hard to kill medical devices tax

If there ever was a piece of legislation influenced by campaign contributions and lobbyists, the bill to repeal a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical device manufacturers, which the House passed last Thursday, would be it.

Forty-six Democrats joined 234 Republicans to repeal the tax, which was authorized by the Affordable Care Act as one of the ways to pay for the expansion of health insurance to millions of uninsured Americans. The tax went into effect on Jan. 1, 2013, and is expected to generate between $26 billion and $29 billion over 10 years, according to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation.

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