By Susan Duclos
Flashback 2009- US News and World Report:
Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the U.S House of Representatives, provided a valuable window on the mindset of the chamber's leadership Tuesday when he all but admitted that few if any members of Congress would read the healthcare reform bill before voting for it.
"If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn't read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes," Hoyer told CNSNews at his regular weekly news conference.
Companies who have never laid workers off before are doing so now and the reason they are citing is Obama's Medical Device tax that is part of the Obamacare health care law. The Medical Device tax is on gross income, not net income, which further damages these companies.
The Advanced Medical Technology Association estimates that the tax ultimately could cost up to 43,000 jobs.
Because the tax is due to hit the medical industry as the new year rolls in, these companies are warning of preemptive layoffs and significant cutbacks in research and development and some have already started doing so.
While DiMino is waiting for next year to see if he'll need to fire workers, over at Uresil, LLC, in Skokie, Ill., the layoffs have already started. The company laid off six people from its 52-person workforce this year, "primarily related" to the tax, President Lev Melinyshyn said.
"We had never laid off anybody," he told FoxNews.com. "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."
More:
DiMino, whose Bergen County, N.J., business currently employs 20 workers, is one of hundreds of CEOs across the country clamoring for Washington's attention, urging lawmakers to kill the tax before it kills jobs.
In just the last few days, the intense lobbying push elicited some measure of response. On Monday, 18 Democratic senators and senators-elect asked Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid to delay the tax, citing the business impact. They noted the industry employs more than 400,000 people, and is dealing with "significant uncertainty and confusion."
Letter sent to Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid by other Democrats, who suddenly realized Conservatives were right when they warned of this before Democrats passed Obamacare, is embedded in a preious WuA piece here.
Reminder- Republicans, in June 2012, passed a bill that would repeal Obama's Medical Device Tax ... the Senate, controlled by Democrats, refused to do the same.
Some of those Democratic Senators who signed the letter to Reid urging him to delay implementation actually voted for that Medical Device Tax before their sudden revelation about how bad it would be for businesses, jobs and economic growth.
Guess they also had to pass the bill before they could see what is in it because asking them to read the damn bill before voting for it, was considered unreasonable by Democratic leadership at the time.
