Thursday, November 19, 2009

Senate Bill Calls for Tax on Aesthetic Procedures

The recently revealed Senate Health Care Reform bill contains a 5% tax on all medical procedures not medically necessary. Really??

This type of tax has been tried in New Jersey, with poor results, and the tax was eventually repealed after projected revenues from the tax fell 72% short of projections. This is not surprising, as any tax professional would say that the best taxes have a broad base and a low margin- not the case here... If that's not enough, it really amounts to double taxation, as these procedures are not deductible in the first place.

Given that the vast majority of aesthetic patients are women, I'm concerned the tax is sexist, and is definitely unfair. Proponents of the tax may say that they intend the tax to target wealthy women, but the fact is that the vast majority of my patients are working women who save their money and/or finance the procedure (the same way we all finance other things that are important to us) because it was something important to them.

Taxing medical procedures, whether the government thinks they are necessary or not, would also compromise the integrity of the Doctor/Patient relationship and the health care system in general- it's a slippery slope from there...

I think this is a really bad idea.


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