U S Sen Scott Brown Visits Suffolk Group client Zoll Medical Corp
1/13/2010
U.S. Sen. Scott Brown Visits Suffolk Group client, Zoll Medical Corp.
1/13/2010
BROWN VISITS ZOLL MEDICAL CORPORATION TO HIGHLIGHT HOW THE NATIONAL HEALTH CARE BILL WILL KILL JOBS
January 13, 2010
CHELMSFORD - To highlight the impact that higher taxes in the health care bill will have on Massachusetts, Scott Brown today visited ZOLL Medical Corporation, a maker of medical devices that help clinicians, EMS professionals and lay rescuers treat victims needing resuscitation and critical care.
Brown visited ZOLL to call attention to elements within the national health care bills that would force the company and others like it in the medical device sector to pay dramatically higher taxes. Both the House and the Senate health bills propose $20 billion in new taxes on medical device manufacturers over the coming decade.
Brown called the proposals "unacceptable" and said Massachusetts' 225 medical device companies should not be made to pay these new costs. According to a 2007 study by Advamed, a medical device manufacturing trade association, Massachusetts counts on medical device manufacturers for nearly 22,000 jobs.
"ZOLL Medical has a strong business and provides excellent benefits to its employees, but national proposals to change our health care system will alter the landscape for this company and many others like it," said Brown. "Companies like this are critical to the Massachusetts economy and provide good jobs and excellent benefits. It is wrong to force them to shoulder a new tax burden that will destroy their ability to compete and maintain jobs."
Depending on the final language of a health care reform bill, ZOLL's share of the proposed new tax on medical devices could be in the $5 million to $10 million range. An additional tax in this amount would equal nearly 100 percent of the company's entire net income and would seriously threaten ZOLL's ability to ability grow and compete.
"We're big supporters of health care reform but the current proposals would mean a reduction in our Massachusetts-based manufacturing and engineering workforce, along with much greater healthcare cost sharing by all our employees," said Richard Packer, ZOLL Medical chief executive officer. "The $20 billion in extra taxes on device manufacturers like us would have a devastating effect on our business."
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