Proposed Cosmetic Surgery Tax Gets Liposuction Procedure

The country is looking at the first major healthcare reform package ever. A proposed cosmetic surgery tax to fund it has received a liposuction procedure and been removed.

Plastic surgery is not the cheapest of medical procedures you can undergo. It is costly in and of itself, but even more so because of the fact that it is known as an elective procedure. This means that health insurance will not pay for it and you must with cash out of pocket. Any increase in the cost is equally painful to your bank account. This made the national healthcare reform bill particularly scary.


How do you pay for a huge healthcare reform bill? Well, you place a tax to generate revenues. In this economic climate, however, that is a non-starter since taxpayers simply can’t take anymore pain these days. Recognizing as much, Congress decided to pass a bunch of smaller taxes that it expects [hopes!] will foot the bill.

One of these taxes was a levy on cosmetic surgery procedures. It included everything from Botox injections to breast enhancements to tummy tucks and…well, you get the idea. The tax would have been in the amount of 5 percent of the cost of the procedure. For example, a $5,000 breast enhancement would generate a tax of $250.



As you can imagine, plastic surgeons and the companies that make things like implants and Botox were none to pleased. They raised a huge ruckus. To the surprise of many, the mainstream medical establishment joined them in lobbying for the tax to be cut from the bill. Why? Well, it isn’t much of a stretch from taxing boob jobs to taxing every medical procedure. Groups like the American Medical Association recognized as much and jumped in with both lobbying feet.

At the end of the day, the Congressional representatives fell to their knees before the onslaught of lobbyist and dropped the proposed cosmetic surgery tax. To replace it, they added a 10 percent tax on all tanning salons which did not have a powerful lobby to represent them!

And they say Democracy doesn’t work!