KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana |Levy on cosmetic surgery to help fund healthcare reform
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SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) - Your next nip/tuck could do much more then enhance your appearance, it could help insure millions of Americans as congress considers a levy on plastic surgery to pay for health care reform.
It's not the pain of a needle sticking Amanda Kile, as she gets her latest botox injection at Willis Knighton Piermont in Shreveport. "I just don't understand it," she said. But rather a heavy levy on her next trip to the plastic surgeon as congress tries to come up with nearly a trillion dollars to pay for healthcare reform.
The Senate Finance Committee is considering a 10% excise tax on cosmetic surgery not deemed medically necessary. "I don't know how they are going to determine how it is needed or not needed," Kile says.
According to The IRS publication 502 it would include "any procedure that is directed at improving the patient's appearance and does not meaningfully promote the proper function of the body or prevent or treat illness or disease." Things like botox, tummy tucks and nose jobs.
Amanda's plastic surgeon Dr. Kenneth Sanders says there is way too much of a gray area."If a young girl gets her nose hit by a softball, that's a rhinoplasty that needs to be done, but it would be a reconstructive rhinoplasty. who is going to make that decision?"
Dr. Sanders says one big misconception about cosmetic surgery is that it is reserved for the rich. "Most people who come to my office are working people, working moms and dads who have regular jobs just like anyone else." He says the tax will hurt the middle class who would already be burdened by the cost of healthcare reform. A bo-tax that would pinch Amanda just a little too hard.
The Senate Finance Committee is expected to discuss the measure after the August recess.
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