Medical technology company, Smith & Nephew, have announced that
it would be letting go of almost 100 workers at its plants in Tennessee and
Massachusetts. The company, which makes orthopedic reconstruction products, is
blaming 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices in President Obama's health
care law for the layoffs, according to Fox13 News.
“The
nearly $30 billion tax on medical devices that took effect Jan. 1, 2013, has
impacted a number of companies across the U.S.” the company said in a statement to Fox13
News.
Medical companies lobbied to get the tax, which is levied on medical
devices implanted by professionals, repealed, according to Reuters. The tax is
expected to raise $29 billion in government revenue through 2022.
Joe Metzger, the company's senior vice president of corporate
communications, told the Memphis Business Journal that the firm is “not immune
from this added expense burden”.
Smith & Nephew, which is based in London and has a global reach,
employs “more than 11,000 [people] in 90 countries,” according to the Washington
Times.
The company is not the first to blame Obamacare for layoffs and other
cuts in spending.
In November, The Huffington Post reported that a Georgia man who
identified himself as a small business owner said "he fired some employees and
cut hours for others" because of the president's reelection and his "Obamacare
mandate."
Also in November, Fox News reported that Stryker, a global
manufacturer of medical devices and equipment, had announced that it was cutting
1,170 jobs in anticipation of the health care law and the medical device excise
tax. The Huffington Post
Arianna Huffington, president and editor in chief of The Huffington
Post Media Group, appeared on CNN's "Your Bottom Line" with Christine Romans on
Friday, stressing the severity of the youth unemployment crisis. The Huffington
Post The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 7.9 percent in January from 7.8
percent in December and the economy added 157,000 jobs, the Labor Department
said Friday, February, 1. AFP The labor force participation rate - that is, the share of people of
working age who are either working or looking for jobs - is hovering around
30-year lows. NY Times The Labor Department’s
most comprehensive alternative unemployment rate measure - which includes people
who want to work but are discouraged from looking (those marginally attached to
the labor force) and people working part time because they can’t find full-time jobs - was 14.4 percent in January. The
Huffington Post The nation's economy unexpectedly shrank by 0.1 percent in the fourth
quarter of 2012, casting fresh doubt on the strength of the economic recovery.
The Hill
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