PHILADELPHIA Makers of continuous glucose monitors and test strips typically find a welcoming audience among diabetics, but a June 9 session at this year's edition of the scientific sessions by the American Diabetes Association (ADA; Alexandria, Virginia) indicates that many physicians are not terribly impressed with self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG). A session on this subject featured a debate on the pros and cons, but even the advocate of SMBG sounded less than wholly enthused at the practice, arguing at one point that "a conclusive study" in support of SMBG "is still missing."

The House vote on a bill to repeal the 2.3% medical device tax passed a vote on the House floor, setting up a showdown with the Senate over the bill's reclamation of healthcare insurance subsidies as an offset to the 2.3% device tax. Also looming is a threat by the White House to veto any such bill, but a leading Democrat in the House said the Senate will never address similar legislation.

Medicare receives the lion's share of attention where coverage and reimbursement are concerned, but at least one venture capitalist deeply involved in med-tech says private payers have historically been more stringent, and are becoming more so. Jack Lasersohn of the Vertical Group (Summit, New Jersey) told Medical Device Daily, "I think it is more coverage" than reimbursement that is the issue with regard to private payers. He also said this is no reflexive approach to a slippery coverage slope, stating, "I think this is a very conscious raising of the bar" on the part of private payers.

WASHINGTON The House Ways and Means Committee has passed a medical device tax repeal bill by a sizable margin (see story below), but Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-Minnesota) told industry at a meeting in Washington it is unlikely that a repeal bill would be available for review in the Oval Office until after the November elections. "We have some opportunity to make some headway in the Senate," Paulsen told attendees at the Medical Device Manufacturers Association (Washington) annual meeting, but he acknowledged he does not have a good grasp of the Senate head count as it currently stands.