On the recordJune 7, 2012
I thank the ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, in the waning days of the work we were doing to get the Affordable Care Act in shape for consideration before the entire Congress, I wasn't an enthusiastic supporter of the medical device manufacturing tax as one of the pay-fors in order to pay for health care reform. I, however, agreed with the President wholeheartedly that health care reform had to be fully paid for. In fact, the idea was to pay for it, and then some, so that we had the ability to start reducing our budget deficits out into the future. Because of the work that was done and because of the hard negotiations and the tradeoffs that were made, the Congressional Budget Office, in its analysis of the Affordable Care Act when it passed, said it would reduce the budget deficit by over $1.2 trillion over the next 20 years. Now, that is a significant achievement--that we are able to start reforming a health care system in desperate need of reform, pay for it at the same time, work to improve the quality of care and the access of care for 33 million uninsured Americans, but also start bending the cost curve in healthcare. I was concerned about the medical device tax as an element of the pay-for, however, because of the vital role that the medical device industry has in our economy. They play an important role when it comes to job creation. They enjoy certain competitive advantages here in the United States market.…
