Political Quotes

“I rise in support of amendment No. 297, which has been brought forward by my colleague, Senator Hatch from Utah. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this amendment that establishes a reserve fund to repeal the onerous medical device tax. In fact, the medical device tax is nearly a $30 billion new excise tax on medical devices. It took effect on January 1 to pay for the President's new health care law, and it affects everything from orthodontics to the most complex lifesaving medical devices--just to name a few: joint replacements, knee braces, pacemakers, visual aids for sight-disabled people. It affects things that help people who are ill, such as lifesaving devices and technologies that people need, and this tax burdens all of them, and it will increase health care costs. I thank Senator Hatch for his tremendous leadership on this issue. He has been fighting so hard to repeal this onerous tax since it went into effect. I thank Senator Hatch for bringing this important amendment forward because the medical device industry in America is a manufacturing success, and I have seen this in my home State of New Hampshire, where we have nearly 50 medical device companies that employ almost 3,500 Granite Staters. We are very proud of those companies, and we want to keep them in New Hampshire and hopefully grow them. When I campaigned for the Senate, I went to visit many of these companies. They told me about this tax and the impact it will have on their companies.…”