Reading Eagle suggests Obamacare helped push out medical-device manufacturer

Does the Reading Eagle think Obamacare was a reason Surgical Specialties decided to move to Mexico?

That’s a message in Matthew Nojiri’s story about U.S. Sen.Pat Toomey and U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts touring Reading Hospital (in scrubs! How cute!):

“While talking with reporters, Pitts and Toomey also blasted the federal Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

“They particularly criticized the rollout of Healthcare.gov, which both called ‘a disaster,’ and a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices.

“Their comments came after Surgical Specialties, a Vancouver, British Columbia, manufacturer of surgical devices, announced it would be closing its Exeter Township plant sometime in mid-2015 and laying off 265 employees.

" ‘It's a job killer,’ Pitts said of the device tax. ‘What is happening to a lot of medical device companies is they are growing overseas.’ " 

But when the Eagle's Business Editor Karen Miller asked Mark Sherman, vice president of human resources at Surgical Specialties, he didn’t mention Obamacare: “Sherman cited the company’s decision to improve its long-term financial strength, given the economic climate, as the reason for the move.”

Lots of Berks companies closed or left before Obamacare was adopted.

Obviously Toomey and Pitts are conservative Republicans, who as a group have dedicated themselves to trashing the new health-care program.

So did the lawmakers make the spurious connection between Obamacare and the flight of Surgical Specialties? Nojiri isn’t clear.

Or did the reporter, despite the sensitivity of the issue, drop it in gratuitously, and his editor and then the copy editor and copy chief and proofreader just let it slide?

It’s a minor mistake, but these are the types of gaffes that discourage people from taking local journalism – the most important journalism – seriously.