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    Medical Device Tax Destroys Jobs and Research

    Personal Freedom and Prosperity 104: Taxes Diminish Personal Power

    Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.
    —President Calvin Coolidge

    Taxing beyond public safety diminishes the freedom of the person taxed.

    Medical Device Tax Destroys Jobs and Research

    To fund ObamaCare, a 2.3% tax on medical devices was included in the law. On January 1, 2013, this tax will be activated. The "medical device" tax exhibits an enormous impact on businesses, employees, medical research and patients. In short, taxes reduce the economic, creative and productive powers of the people directly taxed. Additionally, taxes reduce product advancement and choices for consumers – every American.

    The medical device tax is already destroying jobs. Lev Melinyshyn of the medical device maker Uresil in Skokie, Illinois explains why he laid off around 10% of his employees:

    "We had never laid off anybody," he added. "We bought the company in 2004, never had a layoff. In fact, even during the recession, we added jobs.... It wasn't until this tax hit us that we had to do it."

    Melinyshyn is also halting product development, which harms American consumers. "A lot of patients, I think, are not going to benefit from new technologies," he noted. "We've literally put all of our new product development on hold ... so we can afford to pay the stupid tax."

    Significantly and harmfully, the ObamaCare tax is taking money from private entrepreneurs that are providing and improving products for the benefit of consumers. Murray Rothbard, a libertarian economist of the Austrian School, explains:


    Again, the ObamaCare tax takes from the productive private economy, which provides valuable goods to the American consumer. Now, because of the ObamaCare tax, people are unemployed and product development is stopped. Worse, the tax revenue fuels a very bureaucratic, inefficient and coercive government program - ObamaCare. Writing 50 years ago, Rothbard clearly understood the harm now being caused:


    Sadly, the medical device tax and many more ObamaCare taxes are hurting or will hurt our economy, employment and medical advancement. So far, ObamaCare has not decreased the cost of medical care. As Rothbard noted, America has only received a lot of propaganda at our own expenses.