By Matt Hawes
The Boston Herald is reporting today that a new sales tax on medical-devices in the health care legislation has Massachusetts companies already considering moving overseas. If the reconciliation bill passes, the tax would go from about 2.9% in the original bill to 2.3%, effective Jan. 1, 2013. While it’s nice to see at least a 0.6% percent drop is possibly coming, the costs will still have to be passed on to the consumers through higher prices, and every bit of time businesses have to spend concerned with complying with the tax is less time and manpower they will have to focus on getting their product to the market.
Get ready to hear a couple years from now that the health care industry is in an even bigger mess because President Obama didn’t get everything he wanted this time around. Higher prices and less innovation certainly won’t be blamed on further government intervention.