Taxing American-Based Cosmetic Surgery

Here’s why the proposed 5% surtax on cosmetic plastic surgery is an insult to any thinking American.

Consider a cosmetic plastic surgery practice a business – which it is. 

Each doctor’s practice/business starts from zero.  To build a practice, we doctors first invest in ourselves by pursuing long and arduous training and education. Up to 15 years after high school! And for some of us, we added on a couple more years serving our country in the military.  But in order for the public to benefit from our skills, we need to have a place to work; we then invest further in the “bricks and mortar”. We build an office, to deliver our services – right here in America.

We borrow from American banks; construction and equipment loans. We buy equipment and supplies from American distributors.  We create jobs for Americans – administrators, nurses, medical assistants.  We utilize the services of American attorneys, accountants and practice management consultants. We don’t set up dummy headquarters in the Cayman Islands to evade taxes. We don’t communicate with our customer-patients from inexpensive secret call centers in Mumbai. We don’t earn our dollars by operating  Ponzi schemes out of Wall Street boiler-rooms.  

We grow our practices by providing quality service and good value.  We seek to be honest craftsmen. And, many of us give back to the community by teaching – without pay – at the local medical schools or Veterans Hospitals. 

That’s why it seems ironic that Congress has singled out a small but productive home-grown 100%-American industry –cosmetic plastic surgery — to levy an additional tax. Have we done something wrong besides being successful and making Americans’ lives better?

I wonder why these Washington economic heavyweights didn’t think about taxing multinational corporations that have huge incomes, much of which is garnered from operations outside the United States.  General Motors sells a lot of Buicks in China.  They are making a lot of money there.  All their sobbing about losing money in America was inconsequential to the bottom line of their financial statements.  Maybe they don’t make a profit here; it’s just being done with non-American labor far across the sea. How about a tax on foreign manufacturing by American-based companies? Wouldn’t that be fair?

There’s always hot air and hypocrisy from Washington, of course.  I guess the problem is that we cosmetic plastic surgeons and our patients don’t have the army-like lobbying force that GM and the other multinationals hurl into Washington. Seems Congress thinks it’s O.K. for them to siphon off jobs and money from the United States – and not pay any price.  Multinationals have more friends than we do. Even Nancy Pelosi, obviously a devotee of cosmetic plastic surgery, won’t speak up for us. Maybe her lips are paralyzed from too much Botox or Dysport.

Somehow, we cosmetic plastic surgeons will soldier on and somehow we shall still continue to serve Americans who want our services. Our practice, and I suspect others, has decided to absorb the tax ourselves and not further burden the patients. We shall “eat the tax”; just like our favorite camera store does to help keep traffic flowing and contribute to the fight against the recession.

Finally, unlike, GM we won’t ask for a government bail-out. Maybe we’re too proud to ask for handouts. We’re old-fashioned. We ask nothing from Washington, other than to be left alone and to use the talents we spent half a life perfecting. However, our doors are not necessarily open to everyone. We still have the right to decide whom to accept as patients. So, Senator Harry Reid, who concocted this legislative abomination, listen up: When you are bruised and battered by the health care reform debate, you will be shown the door and given a map to the Mexican border. There are plenty of medical clinics there. They will be glad to see you and there’s no 5% tax.