Today the House of Representatives is voting on H.R. 160, the Protect Medical Innovation Act, which would repeal a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices. Congress included the tax in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010. The tax is expected to raise $26 billion over the next 10 years.
Repealing the tax has been a major legislative goal of the medical device industry. Supporters of the tax, including organizations like the National Physicians Alliance and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, have argued the tax does not hurt device manufacturers.
Data: MapLight analysis of campaign contributions to members of the House of Representatives from the political action committees (PACs) and employees of industries supporting and opposing H.R. 160 from October 1, 2012 to September 30, 2014. Contributions data source: OpenSecrets.org.
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Industries supporting the medical device tax repeal gave 21 times more ($19.5M) to current members of the House of Representatives compared to industries opposing the bill ($942K).
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Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-MN), the sponsor of the medical device tax repeal, received $109,049 from the medical supplies manufacturing and sales industry, more than any other member of the House.
Top 10 Recipients of Contributions from the Medical Supplies Manufacturing & Sales Industry
In addition to campaign contributions, the medical device industry has spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress and federal agencies.
Lobbying: MapLight analysis of the top 10* companies that spent the most on lobbying in Q1, 2015 and listed H.R. 160 as one of the issues they lobbied on. The analysis also includes lobbying spending by the Advanced Medical Technology Association, an industry trade association, which also listed H.R. 160 as one of the issues they lobbied on in Q1, 2015. Date range of analysis: January 1, 2013 through March 31, 2015 Data source:
Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives
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Since the 2.3 percent tax went into effect in January 2013, the top 10 medical device companies and the Advanced Medical Technology Association have spent $109.7 million lobbying Congress and federal agencies.
*The top 10 companies are: 3M, AbbVie, Bayer, Cardinal Health, Endo Pharmaceuticals, General Electric, Medtronic, Philips North America, Smith & Nephew, and Smiths Group Services.
Lobbying: MapLight analysis of federal lobbying disclosure filings from the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives between January 1, 2013, and June 16, 2015. Lobbying totals represent money paid by an organization to each lobbying firm for services on all issues. Organizations report total lobbying expenses as a lump sum, which includes both in-house lobbying expenses and amounts paid to (and reported by) lobbying firms that they employ. MapLight calculates a given organization's in-house lobbying expenses by subtracting the total income reported by the lobbying firms that it employs from the company's total reported expenses. In general, filers may round their spending and expenses to the nearest $10,000, and we treat the designation of "Less than $5,000" as a value of $0. MapLight updates its lobbying database daily to capture amendments. Full reports are due on the 20th day of January, April, July, and October.
