Yesterday Senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, participated in a Finance Subcommittee on Health hearing entitled, “A Fresh Look at the Impact of the Medical Device Tax on Jobs, Innovation, and Patients.” The hearing examined how the 2.3 percent medical device excise tax is effecting the American economy and the health of individual Americans.

During the hearing, Coats stressed the importance for Indiana of repealing the medical device tax.

“In Indiana, the medical device industry is boosting our state’s economy and producing technologies that are changing and saving lives,” said Coats. “These are jobs that pay, on average, 56 percent higher wages than the average wage rate in Indiana. We, too, have seen how this tax discourages medical device manufacturers from expanding research and development, capital investment and employee compensation.

This device tax is a killer for start-up companies in Indiana and nationally, as they must pay the tax on their gross sales even when they are operating at a low net income or net loss situation. The bottom line is that this tax is threatening a critical Indiana industry that provides life-changing innovations to patients worldwide and provides high paying jobs to our citizens.”