Is the Health Care Bill's Cosmetic Surgery Tax Sexist?"After we reported last week that the 5% cosmetic tax provision in the current health care reform bill would tax everything from botox to boob jobs, we decided to investigate further.
Check out this statistic: 86% of all cosmetic surgery patients are women, of which 60% earn a household income between $30,000-$90,000, according to the The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).
"Women are under extreme pressure to maintain a youthful and conventionally attractive appearance, in the workplace and elsewhere – we can even be fired for not wearing makeup-up," says Jill Filipovic of the Feministe blog.
"But when women respond to the pressure by getting cosmetic surgery, we're labeled shallow, and now, potentially taxed. It's a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't position."
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – who authored the provision – has a simple reason for adding the tax to the healthcare reform bill. "We needed money to make the bill work, and this is an idea that had been raised before in the finance committee," Reid tells StyleList.
The bill is expected to raise $5.8 billion over 10 years to help pay for the $849 billion plan, the Agence France-Presse reports.
But some cosmetic surgeons argue that the tax unfairly targets the wrong group.
"Generally, I find that cosmetic surgery patients want to look their best, so they eat healthy and stay in shape. These kinds of people don't cost the health-care industry a lot. If you want to go after someone to pay for the cost of this bill, why not target industries that are contributing to the problem – like the fast food, smoking and alcohol industries?" says Miami Plastic Surgeon Dr. Carlos Wolf
"It's completely sexist," adds New Jersey dermatologist Dr. Jeffrey A. Rapaport.
"I'm shocked there hasn't been more of a backlash from women's groups and female representatives in Congress – they're basically asking women to pick up the extra costs of healthcare," says Rapaport.
If the 5% cosmetic tax passes, many doctors are concerned the extra cost will cause patients to seek lower-priced and less regulated alternatives elsewhere. In southern California – the cosmetic surgery hotbed of the country – it's not uncommon for female patients to travel south of the border in search of a cheaper solution. And as we saw recently with the recent Miss Argentina gluteoplasty tragedy, falling into the wrong hands can equate to bad results -- or even worse."
(AOL)