Varian Medical Systems

It is a big "if" regardless of sector or asset class, the "if" being possible help from Capitol Hill, but it is possible that a group of U.S. senators could boost the fortunes of medical device stocks and the ETFs that track those equities.As has been previously noted, medical device ETFs , such as the iShares Dow Jones U.S. Medical Devices Index Fund (NYSE:IHI) and the Health Care Equipment ETF (NYSE:XHE), could be vulnerable to selling pressure in 2013.That downside would not be the result of the fiscal cliff. Rather, IHI, XHE and their components are vulnerable due to what is a nasty aspect of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. Within Obamacare there is a punitive tax on medical device makers.A study by the non-partisan Battelle Technology Partnership Practice highlights the notion this is not any old tax. It is one that is expected to cost tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of lost U.S. GDP .As was the case with the broader market, IHI and XHE stumbled the days i...

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