Obamacare: Taxing Cosmetic Surgery

The Senate version of Obamacare will tax elective cosmetic surgery. From the story:

The bill levies a 5 percent tax on elective cosmetic surgery. The provision raises $5 billion and was needed to make the numbers work, according to a Democratic Senate aide. The Finance Committee considered the tax but dismissed it, in part because it was a public relations battle that senators were not willing to wage.

Actually, if I believed that taxing services and products with low/negative social utility was proper, I would enthusiastically support this tax.  Cosmetic surgery sucks tremendous amounts of medical resources out of our strained medical sector for (usually) frivolous purposes—and just as harmfully, promotes a very destructive and unrealistic standard of beauty, leading to much pain and destructive behavior. But I don’t, so I oppose the tax.