Nancy Pelosi’s oft quoted statement about passing Obamacare so that we can, “find out what’s in it,” has come back to haunt the American people once again.
There are jobs in China included in the Obamacare mess, what’s not in it are jobs for Americans. Boston Scientific, a medical-device manufacturer, recently announced that they will cut up to 2700 jobs in America to save money and remain competitive. The company also announced that they will hire 1000 people in China. The most shocking part of the announcement was the reason given for this move overseas. Apparently the company feels that there is less government oversight in China, and lower costs of course thanks to the lack of unions. Not in my lifetime did I ever think China would be more business friendly than the U.S.A.
Obamacare has a new tax buried in the 2000 plus page law, one that adds a 2.3% tax, in addition to other taxes paid, on medical-device makers. This is business, where 2.3% can be the average profit margin of an entire industry, and adding such a tax can cause huge ramifications. Simply adding this extra cost onto the final price tag of the device is not an option. Competition from abroad won’t allow such a thing, along with the fact that our government continues to cut reimbursement rates on these devices instead of cutting benefits as they must.
It’s not as though Boston Scientific and all the hundreds of other medical-device manufacturers did not warn the administration before Obamacare was passed into law. They made it very clear that many jobs will be lost in America and go elsewhere if the tax survived in the final law. It did survive, and the jobs are gone, resulting in thousands of Americans out of work and on unemployment insurance and food stamps.
Michael Higgins