Taxing boob jobs

In 2004, New Jersey Democratic Assemblyman Joseph Cryan had a brilliant idea. Why not tax cosmetic surgery?

The tax was enacted. But the measly $9 million per year it generates -- less than a third of projections -- wasn't worth the controversy that followed, Mr. Cryan now says. Because the tax exempts "necessary" procedures such as the correction of birth defects, it spurred angry debate with doctors over the medical necessity of individual procedures, while chasing customers out of state. It has also prompted charges of discrimination against middle-class women, who turn out to comprise the majority of patients.

"It was a real education," Mr. Cryan, who now wants the levy repealed, told Bloomberg News. "We essentially discouraged the business from happening at all."

They taxed something, and got less of it? Imagine that!

So guess what? Buried deep inside Sen. Harry Reid's 2,000-page health care monstrosity is a 5 percent tax on cosmetic surgery, nationwide -- one of many new taxes now proposed to help fund his scheme to nationalize American health care.

President Obama famously vowed never to raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000 per year. But Phil Haeck, president-elect of the Chicago-based American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, notes that almost two-thirds of cosmetic surgery patients earn less than $60,000 a year -- and 90 percent are women.

Reforming health care on the backs of cocktail waitresses and other service workers? And the guy who thought this up represents Nevada?

The federal tax wouldn't apply to reconstructive surgery, or any procedure needed to improve a congenital deformity, personal injury or disfiguring disease, according to the legislation. But who will decide what's "needed"?

Beyond the effect on consumers, opponents of the legislation warn that -- just as in the New Jersey trial run -- it won't produce as much revenue as Senate Democrats hope for, anyway.

Across the United States, doctors report a 40 percent drop in cosmetic procedures during the recession. "We already see a sizable number of people going on medical tourism trips to Thailand, South America, Mexico," warns Dr. Haeck. "This might tip the balance," sending even more outside our borders in search of such procedures.

Of course, Congress could make it illegal to leave the country for medical treatment. Heck, they could even build a wall. Other nations that have nationalized health care and the auto and banking industries, expanding government many times over, have found it necessary to take firm steps to keep the victims of their confiscations from escaping. Why should the United States be any different?