A trade agreement with South Korea that has the support of the medical device industry is once again stalled in a game of partisan brinkmanship on Capitol Hill and, not surprisingly, Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee are blaming each other for the delay.
On Thursday, members of the Senate Finance Committee were set to hold a mark-up on the trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama, along with its 97 amendments, including one that would repeal the medical device tax and several tenets of the landmark healthcare reform bill.
However, Republican leaders on the committee said they were not being given enough time to consider the bill and refused to show up for the scheduled afternoon meeting. The move denied the committee a quorum and forced another indefinite delay.
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MassDevice Staff Website The Massachusetts Medical Devices Journal is the online journal of the medical devices industry in the Commonwealth and New England, providing day-to-day coverage of the devices that save lives, the people behind them, and the burgeoning trends and developments within the industry.
The current scuffle involved an issue of timing, namely that GOP leaders wanted the meeting to begin at 10:00 a.m., rather than the 3:00 p.m. start time that Democrat leaders on the panel had set.
“Last night, in an effort to ensure carefully consideration of pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, there was an agreement between Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for the Senate Finance Committee to meet at 10:00 AM on Thursday, June 30th and proceed with the “mock” markup of the three trade agreements,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) wrote in a prepared release.
Hatch said the timing would have allowed the committee “ample time to examine and amend” the bill.
“However, Senate Democrats refused to hold it at 10:00 a.m., and even refused to allow the Committee to convene next Tuesday. Instead they moved forward with the late-day markup over the objections of Republican Members of the Committee. Instead of allowing the White House to jam a domestic spending bill by abusing trade rules at a late-day markup, Senate Finance Committee Republicans exercised their minority rights and opted to delay for adequate time to fully examine the trade pacts, and the Trade Adjustment Assistance proposal recently made public.”
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Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee has been a vocal opponent of passing the bills because they contain a renewal of the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, which re-trains U.S. workers who get displaced when companies ship overseas. He has argued that the aid program is too expensive to gain approval. Renewing TAA at 2009 levels would cost about $7.2 billion over 10 years.
The delay means an amendment to repeal the medical device tax, which Hatch attached to the trade agreement bill on Thursday, is likely to go nowhere. Hatch filed the amendment to repeal the device tax, which is set to go into place in 2013, along with amendments to repeal the employer mandate and provisions that bar states from cutting medicare eligibility. All three provisions were contained in the landmark healthcare reform bill.
In January, Hatch sponsored the Senate bid to do away with the tax, which is slated to kick in starting in 2013. It’s a 2.3 percent tax on revenues designed to raise $20 billion over 10 years.
The delay also means the bill, which has the support of the medical device industry, is once again in limbo.
“Korea is one of the largest and fastest growing markets for medical technology. U.S. manufacturers exported over $875 million worth of medical technology products to Korea in 2010,” AdvaMed president & CEO Stephen Ubl said in a statement.
“AdvaMed strongly supports adoption and implementation of the U.S.-Korea FTA as quickly as possible,” said Ubl.
The U.S. used to be Korea’s biggest trading partner, but has fallen behind China, Japan, and the European Union since 2003, according to a White House fact sheet.
The Massachusetts Medical Devices Journal is the online journal of the medical devices industry in the Commonwealth and New England, providing day-to-day coverage of the devices that save lives, the people behind them, and the burgeoning trends and developments within the industry.
