How do you pay for major healthcare reform that will extend insurance to practically all Americans? You come up with little taxes, like the proposed tax on cosmetic surgery.
The great healthcare debate has grown so over the top that it is fairly humorous. The left claims it will be so great we’ll save everyone. The right claims there will be death squads rolling around retirement homes whacking seniors like a bad Sopranos episode! What is not up for debate is the cost of this behemoth. It is going to come in somewhere between eight hundred billion and one trillion dollars.
This, of course, means we need to come up with tax revenues to fund the new healthcare initiative. The question is how exactly we do that? The answer seems to be by passing a host of small taxes that will cumulatively raise enough money to pay for the bill. One of the taxes being proposed is a tax on elective cosmetic surgery procedures. Let’s take a look.
The proposed tax will be the equivalent of 5 percent of the price of the procedure. Many women get breast lifts after pregnancy. The average cost is between $5,000 and $10,000 for the procedure. If we take a figure of $8,000, the tax would equate to $400. That’s hardly spare change, but it also isn’t the end of the world for most patients.
There are some viable reasons to argue against this tax. Predominant among them is cosmetic surgery is elective, which means people have to pay cash for it. Insurance does not cover it, so this is a real cost that will be felt in the old wallet. That being said, the wailing coming from plastic surgeons is so over the top as to hurt their position. Some claim that patients will start going abroad to have the surgeries or not have them at all. Given the cost of flying, hotels and the like, I doubt a $400 add on to a breast lift would get any patients on a plane. The same goes for swaying someone from getting the surgery in the first place.
I am against new taxes in all forms, but a five percent tax on an elective surgery is hardly the end of the world. If a tax on cosmetic surgery pays for healthcare reform, then so be it.
This, of course, means we need to come up with tax revenues to fund the new healthcare initiative. The question is how exactly we do that? The answer seems to be by passing a host of small taxes that will cumulatively raise enough money to pay for the bill. One of the taxes being proposed is a tax on elective cosmetic surgery procedures. Let’s take a look.
The proposed tax will be the equivalent of 5 percent of the price of the procedure. Many women get breast lifts after pregnancy. The average cost is between $5,000 and $10,000 for the procedure. If we take a figure of $8,000, the tax would equate to $400. That’s hardly spare change, but it also isn’t the end of the world for most patients.
There are some viable reasons to argue against this tax. Predominant among them is cosmetic surgery is elective, which means people have to pay cash for it. Insurance does not cover it, so this is a real cost that will be felt in the old wallet. That being said, the wailing coming from plastic surgeons is so over the top as to hurt their position. Some claim that patients will start going abroad to have the surgeries or not have them at all. Given the cost of flying, hotels and the like, I doubt a $400 add on to a breast lift would get any patients on a plane. The same goes for swaying someone from getting the surgery in the first place.
I am against new taxes in all forms, but a five percent tax on an elective surgery is hardly the end of the world. If a tax on cosmetic surgery pays for healthcare reform, then so be it.