EFN

Plastic surgeons across the U.S. are seeing red over a piece of proposed legislation that could make a trip to the plastic surgeon or a medical spa more expensive.

There were approximately 4.7 million Botox visits in the U.S. last year, with the average cost per visit around $400. Cosmetic surgery has been spreading not only among individuals in their 20s, but also among teens and people in their 60s.

Senator Harry Reid, D-Nev., revealed the new plan on Wednesday which includes a 5 percent tax on cosmetic procedures and surgeries. If passed into law, the tax will go into effect on January 1, 2010, in hopes of generating $5.8 billion over the next 10 years to help fund the $849 billion health care plan.

The new tax will apply to all procedures that are “not necessary to ameliorate a deformity arising from, or directly related to, a congenital abnormality, a personal injury resulting from an accident or trauma, or disfiguring disease.”

The ASPS says the tax will mainly affect the middle class working women of the US who are the aesthetic industry’s largest group. Dr. Michael McGuire, President of ASPS said, “Elective surgery taxes discriminate against women, given that 86 percent of cosmetic surgery patients are female.” McGuire also argued that plastic surgeries are no longer considered luxury procedures only for the wealthy. Others are concerned that after cosmetic surgery the tax will be applied to an increasing number of other procedures, for example, laser eye surgery, knee-replacement surgery, etc.