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.
