Will Your Botaxes Pay for Health Care Reform?
To fund new health-care initiatives, rumors abound that US Senators are considering a tax on elective cosmetic procedures like Botox. Call them the "Botaxes" or "vanity taxes," as these revenue generators were called in the past.
Attempts by state legislatures to tax cosmetic surgery to subsidize health programs and close budget gaps are relatively few. In 2004, New Jersey passed the first Botax law; the state levied a 6% tax on cosmetic procedures including hair transplants, chemical peels and liposuction. Plastic surgeons in New Jersey complained bitterly about the taxes, namely because they believed that patients would simply take their business to another tax-free state and that revenue projections for the tax were overstated.
In fighting against the NJ tax, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) worked to dispel the perception that cosmetic surgery is for the wealthy, and thus a fair purchase to tax. The organization's surveys found that most cosmetic procedures are paid for out-of-pocket by middle-income-earning, working women.
The ASPS issued a press release at the time of the NJ tax enactment, with Rod Rohrich, MD calling a cosmetic surgery tax "a dangerous precedent for lawmakers to consider taxing patients who need elective bariatric, Lasik, orthopaedic or other medical procedures based on the state’s, rather than a physician’s, interpretation of ‘medical necessity.'”
Indeed, it appears to be a prescient statement, with New Jersey potentially laying the groundwork for a much wider, national sales tax on cosmetic surgery.
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unregistered guest
27 Jul 2009
Procedures like laser tattoo removal would fall under this, which is insane. What better way to discourage people from making positive change in their lives than to apply an excise tax to cosmetic procedures. People that are removing gang-related tattoos, removing tattoos that keep them from the job they want, etc shouldn't be penalized. They should be commended.
479 posts
19 Nov 2009
the botax may indeed end up law. today the senate has added back a provision of 5% tax on cosmetic surgery
''SEC. 5000B. IMPOSITION OF TAX ON ELECTIVE COSMETIC MEDICAL PROCEDURES. ''(a) IN GENERAL.-There is hereby imposed on any cosmetic surgery and medical procedure a tax equal to 5 percent of the amount paid for such procedure (determined without regard to this section), whether paid by insurance or otherwise. ''
(b) COSMETIC SURGERY AND MEDICAL PROCEDURE.-For purposes of this section, the term 'cosmetic surgery and medical procedure' means any cosmetic surgery (as defined in section 213(d)(9)(B)) or other similar procedure which- ''(1) is performed by a licensed medical professional, and ''(2) is not necessary to ameliorate a deformity arising from, or directly related to, a congenital abnormality, a personal injury resulting from an accident or trauma, or disfiguring disease.