Should Congress Tax Elective Cosmetic Procedures To Help Pay For Universal Health Care?
Now that
Senator Landrieu and
Congressman Cao have given their support to the health insurance reform initiative, let's talk about some of those BIG SCARY TAX INCREASES that have someone (read:. "insurance companies") splashing all kinds of silly misinformation all over TV and radio commercials.
For example, perhaps Cousin Sally was just diagnosed with leukiemia. But Sally is widowed and works two part time jobs to keep her kids in shoes and food, and neither of her low-wage jobs provides her with health insurance. On the other side of the tracks, Banker Joan has traded her youthful years to become a wealthy businesswoman, and wants to finally enjoy her single retirement. So she would like to get nice, natural looking facelift and peruse the single life in her golden years.
The Question: Is it wrong for Congress to suggest that a small tax on Joan's fully elective, cosmetic procedure is in order to help Sally afford to get medical insurance, which will help Sally work longer, and ensure that she is around and healthy enough to take care of her kids for as long as medically possible?
It's a question of priorities. Every special interest group in our nation has political action committee (PAC), and guess whose PAC is spending lots of money to tell you that this kind of taxing priority is wrong, wrong, wrong? If you guessed the
American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (if you've misplaced your thesaurus, "aesthetic" translates as "pretty") then you are a winner!
These are the doctors who are being paid (and have a personal financial stake) in telling you that Congress is trying to raise health care taxes - they just don't happen to mention that the tax is relatively small for each individual, and is only applied to non-medically required, purely aesthetic, elective cosmetic procedures.
These are the kinds of priorities that Congress is currently debating with a health insurance reform bill. What they are NOT debating is a "government takeover" of health care (remember, this is
insurance reform, not doctor/patient reform; no matter what version of the bill passes, y
ou will be able to keep your own doctor and your current insurance if you can afford and prefer it)
.
And since we're on the topic of priorities, let's discuss this proposed "cosmetic tax." What are the doctors who specialize in cosmetic procedures claiming is wrong with such a tax? Why, they say it is
discriminatory. So apparently they're under the impression that people who can afford to pay out of pocket to have
purely cosmetic procedures are some kind of protected class in our society...while apparently
impoverished parents and children who suffer and die due to lack of insurance should be just swept aside as a national "oops, my bad."
Look, as a former policy specialist and an aging woman myself, do I think that this tax is likely to be primarily paid by women? Of course. Women are by far the largest consumers of elective cosmetic procedures (although men are gaining on us). But the key word here is "elective." If you really don't want to pay tax on a cosmetic procedure, don't get the procedure, or get it elsewhere (although you'll probably just end up paying for another nation's taxes if you do so). If you want the procedure enough to pay tax on it... well then you can probably afford your health insurance anyway. Consider yourself fortunate to be financially (and medically) stable in a time when millions of your fellow Americans are not.
Americans are by and large a compassionate, caring group of people. If 9/11 taught us nothing else, it taught us that when the shit really hits the fan, we as a nation want to be one community that cares for its own. So I really believe that once we learn who is truly in the business of trying to buy our votes - either with money, or with hyperbolic emotional half-truths and scare tactics, then we as a nation will do the right thing for our communities and our country. So keep an eye out, and
remember to always ask the question: Who stands to benefit from this commercial, or that speech, or the other emotion-laded, fist-pounding diatribe? And once you find out who that beneficiary is, ask yourself whether they're really concerned with the best interests of you and your family, or simply with their own pocketbooks. Then you'll have an educated base from which you can confidently decide your own priorities.
