Five percent tax on Elective Cosmetic Surgery - Harry Reid

Desperately seeking money to pay for new health care legislation, Senate majority leader Harry Reid is proposing a 5 percent tax on elective cosmetic surgery and procedures.

With all the nipping and tucking and lifting and botoxing that members of Congress have recently indulged in, it's difficult to imagine that he will find much support. Nevertheless, some senators who have already had their fill of fillers and thus feel free to tax the sagging and wrinkly laggards, need to consider the following.

As 90 % of elective cosmetic surgeries and procedures are done by women, this is effectively a tax on women and thus discriminatory. And these are not just rich women doing facelifts. Cosmetic intervention has gone mainstream. The majority of surgeries and procedures are performed on hard working middle class women who simply want to look more attractive. Anything wrong with that? Perhaps it IS sad that women feel a pressure to take to the knife, but that pressure is a reality of life today. In an incredibly tight job market, looking a few years younger, fresher and perkier can pay off. Sad perhaps, but true. And if she spends hours in the gym working to keep her body looking young and healthy why should she be let down by some sagging skin around the eyes and jowls?

Otherwise, in order to make it more gender balanced - on top of the botox tax they could add a tax on footballs, viagra, car magazines, gadgets, wide-screen tv's, and shaving paraphernalia.

Also, defining elective surgery and procedures has always been difficult. While most of us can agree that breast augmentation is not medically necessary, some (in particular the women who suffer from it) would argue that having breasts that hang limply like a cocker spaniel's ears after multiple pregnancies can cause extreme self esteem problems and depression. Similarly, nose jobs can have a remarkable effect, especially on young people's self-confidence. Long-term, rhinoplasty may be cheaper than all the therapy needed to deal with the self-esteem problems from a massive or oddly shaped nose. It’s scary, but insurance companies have long tried to have craniofacial care labeled as elective or dental. At one point they wanted to label cleft-repair as cosmetic surgery in order to not have to pay!

And if we go down this path, why not tax haircuts, manicures, spa-treatments, dental whitening, hair waxing, ear-piercing (or any other piercing for that matter), and tattoos? After all, they are all elective and cosmetic procedures.

Maybe this 5 % tax should, instead, be applied to things that ruin your health, thus directly contributing to ballooning health care costs. Lets see.... sugar, candies, chips, fast food, alcohol, basically anything high in fat, sugar or sodium. Also tv's and video games that contribute to our sedentary (and unhealthy) lifestyles.

That way we would be slimmer, healthier, more sober and prettier so we could afford those cosmetic surgeries.

Finally, there is, of course, always another side to every story. And this proposal will have its protagonists. Our guess is that plastic surgeons all over South and Central America are bouncing up and down in joyous anticipation of an even greater boom in "medical tourism". Countries like Panama and Costa Rica should see a boost to their economies as even more Americans head south for surgeries that are already 25-40 % cheaper than in the US.

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