Radiologist Paul Hsieh describes just a few of the ways that Obamacare's regulations will strangle medical innovation.
The first prong is through new taxes. Recently, the Cook Medical company announced that it was canceling plans to open new factories because of the impending ObamaCare tax on medical device manufacturers scheduled to take effect in 2013. The 2.3% tax on total sales (not profits) will cost Cook $20 million dollars a year. As a result, the company will not be opening five plants that would have employed up to 300 people each. ...The second prong of the war on innovation is through regulations. The Wall Street Journal recently reported how a single FDA scientist, Dr. Robert Smith, blocked approval of digital mammography machines for several years last decade. Breast cancer specialists like Dr. Etta Pisano stated that Smith had imposed "obstacles to approval that were unreasonable." This was especially frustrating for Pisano, who had co-authored a 42,760-patient study in the 2005 New England Journal of Medicine that demonstrated the reliability of digital mammography and showed that it was "'significantly better' than film in finding cancer in women under 50 and those before or during menopause."
Was Smith "just doing his job"?
It would be bad enough if Smith had been a rogue, overzealous regulator. But it's even worse if Smith is correct, because that means Smith represents how the system is supposed to work.
Great article... but when did Forbes.com get so cluttered and busy? Ugh, the site looks horrible. Added insult: I can't find a way to view a single-page printable version of the article. If there's a way to do it, it's lost in the visual chaos.
