WASHINGTON — The House voted Tuesday to repeal a 2.3% excise tax on medical devices, again showing bipartisan support for eliminating the levy.
Congress created the tax in the 2010 Affordable Care Act to help pay for expanding health insurance, but medical-device companies and their home-state allies in both parties have been fighting against it ever since.
“This bill reverses a harmful tax that is hurting job growth and innovation across the country,” Rep. Erik Paulsen, R-Minn., the bill’s sponsor, said on the House floor.
The tax took effect in 2013, but Congress suspended it starting in 2016 and recently extended that moratorium until January 2020. The tax applies to products such as pacemakers and artificial joints, not items directly sold to consumers. Tuesday’s vote was 283 to 132, with all but one Republican voting for the bill. Among Democrats, 57 voted for the measure and 131 opposed it. The bill would reduce federal revenue by about $22 billion over a decade. But even senators who support the legislation are skeptical that it could come up before end of the year.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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