Botax

A proposed tax to be levied on voluntary cosmetic surgery.

Writing recently on The Times’s Prescriptions blog, David M. Herszenhorncommented:

Senator Harry Reid’s health care bill included an array of new provisions that are being scrutinized Wednesday night, but one particular tax proposal in particular already has attracted a buzz – a 5 percent levy on elective cosmetic procedures that was quickly dubbed the “botax.”

According to Herszenhorn:

It would raise an estimated $5 billion over 10 years toward the projected $849 billion cost of the health care legislation, and it is certain to be opposed by plastic surgeons and their patients.

The botax would be paid by the patient and calculated against the total cost of a procedure. Surgeries to correct congenital abnormalities, or disfigurements caused by accidents or disease, would be exempt.

The term botax is not new. In 2004, The Times reported on proposals by the New York City Budget Office to make cosmetic surgery and Botox procedures subject to sales taxes:

The so-called botax is among a raft of money-making options for the city being circulated by the budget office, a nonpartisan fiscal monitor that for the last three years has issued a collection of ideas, some bordering on whimsical, for how to cut spending and raise revenues.