Skeleton Key

Helplessly Hoping
Some medical-device companies faced with a new tax meant to help finance the health law are hoping someone else will pick up the tab: their hospital customers.

Companies including feeding-tube supplier Applied Medical Technology Inc. and respiratory-valve maker Hans Rudolph Inc. quietly added new surcharges or warned hospitals of price increases to cover the new 2.3% tax on device sales that went into effect Jan. 1, according to letters and invoices from nine manufacturers sent to hospitals that were reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. (WSJ, 1/26/2013)

Well, duh. Illustrating once again (this is getting boring) the utter absurdity of Liberals and Obamacare. Of course medical supply companies are going to raise their prices to cover the added expense of the Obamacare tax. They would be silly not to. Did Obama and Kathleen Sebelius think these firms would just magnanimously absorb the cost? What does your refuse contractor do when the price of gasoline doubles? They add a fuel surcharge. This is still a capitalist country (for the time being). Who pays for the medical supply tax in the end? You do. Thank Obamacare. And don't keep your fingers crossed waiting for that cost curve to bend.

Other benefits of this tax? Consider:

Device makers have also said they would cut costs with layoffs or reductions in research spending to help offset the impact of the tax. In November 2011, for instance, Stryker Corp., a maker of hip and knee implants, said it would lay off 1,000 employees in part to brace for the tax. (WSJ, 1/26/2013)


Devotion
And for Mr. Obama, who devoted part of his Inaugural Address on Monday to a celebration of the end of a war in Iraq and the winding down of the American commitment in Afghanistan, the prospect of getting involved in a conflict against a shadowy enemy far from the United States is unwelcome. (NYT, 1/25/2013)

We view this as another of those "The Education of a President" moments. Sure Obama's preference would be to oversee the enactment of overarching social programs in the U.S., rather than get involved with another overseas war. But reality intrudes. Militant Islamic radicalism is not going to disappear overnight or quietly. 


Urgent
Ms. Carey urged the group to keep pressuring the administration on a number of issues, including immigration reform, expanding benefits to same-sex partners of military personnel and allowing transgendered people to serve openly in the military. (NYT, 1/25/2013)

How we will know that the apocalypse is near: when transgendered people serve openly in the military.