03 Dec, 2009
Time Magazine on Botox Botax.
Posted by: Laser Clinic MD In: Botox Canada| Laser Clinic ()
More heat on the great Botox ‘Botax’ debate, this time from Time.
The health care bill currently being debated in the Senate includes a provision that would levy a 5% tax on elective cosmetic surgeries. The proposed Bo-tax is being presented by supporters as a simple economic tool to help offset health care costs, yet detractors—including some 7,000 doctors in the American Academy of Plastic Surgeons—say that the tax is based on inaccurate assumptions that everyone who gets plastic surgery is very wealthy, that it unfairly targets women, who make up the majority of plastic surgery patients, and that it will drive people to seek less expensive and potentially more dangerous options for cosmetic procedures.
As it’s currently written, the proposed tax wouldn’t apply to people seeking cosmetic treatment for injuries or disfigurements caused by accidents, trauma or disease. Yet, often, plastic surgeries aren’t clearly either for medical or aesthetic reasons, and instead can be a combination of both. (The person who has a nose job to clear up a breathing problem and has a little sculpting done as well, for example). Additionally, plastic surgeons argue that the taxes could further harm their business, which has already seen fewer patients since the economic downturn as liposuction and other procedures have lost popularity. Even as plastic surgeons criticize the proposed measure, they concede that there’s not likely to be a hue and cry against the tax from plastic surgery patients themselves, who would likely be too embarrassed to publicly protest. As Dr. Steven Teitelbaum, a Santa Monica-based plastic surgeon, told the New York Times:
