Medical Device Tax Repeal Back on the Table?

And the back and forth continues.

On Thursday, Oct. 3, three days into the government shutdown, a group of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives publicly endorsed repealing the medical device tax. While many democrats have voiced opposition to the tax—even backing its repeal in separate legislation early this year—during the ongoing budget debate the party has been in lockstep with the White House’s message: No device tax repeal as part of the budget and debt ceiling debate.

According to an initial report from The Wall Street Journal, a coalition of Democrats have publicly put the device tax back on the table as a negotiating tactic to get both sides talking. Around 20 lawmakers appeared together at a press conference Thursday.

Appearing with a group of moderate Republicans—the dissenting group of House GOP lawmakers who broke with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and far right members of their party to back a “clean” budget bill without Obamacare concessions—the group of Democratic representatives said they would support repealing the 2.3 percent tax on medical device sales if their Republican colleagues would agree to pass a spending bill keeping the government funded for the next six months.

“We need to find some resolution to the stalemate,” said Rep.Ron Kind (D-Wis.), chairman of the New Democrat coalition. “We are also interested in trying to fix a flaw we perceive in the Affordable Care Act, the medical device tax.”

Kind and the bipartisan group, according to the WSJ, is working to find a way to generate the nearly $30 billion in revenue the tax is expected to bring in over 10 years.

In a letter to Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the lawmakers proposed offsetting a repeal of the tax with a pay-for achieved by extending a pension stabilization provision that was included in the transportation authorization bill previously passed by the Senate. It isn’t immediately clear how many lawmakers had signed the letter.

“They put their necks out—they’ve agreed to make a change to the healthcare law. That wasn’t easy for a lot of them,” Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) said of the Democrats. “There are going to be members on the Republican side on the far right who aren’t going to like this because this bill does not defund or delay the healthcare law. But it’s important that we accept incremental progress when we can and this is one of those times.”

Other Democrats quickly rejected the idea.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) reportedly called it an act of desperation.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said repealing the tax would set a dangerous precedent heading into the debate over extending the federal borrowing limit. “You can’t call for that legislative blackmail or it will get worse and worse and worse,” the WSJ reported Schumer as saying.