Furious Seasons

December 21, 2009

Health Care Reform To Include Tanning Tax

OK, news is just coming out this afternoon that the Senate health care reform bill will include a 10 percent tax on artificial tanning. Apparently, this was done to replace the Botox tax on cosmetic surgery that was in the bill at some point. I'm not a fan of the whole artificial tanning thing, but if people are into it, then whatever. Some folks use tanning sessions to ward off seasonal affective disorder. But a federal tax on it? To help pay for health care reform? I think there needs to be a diagnosis in the DSM for this kind of political chicanery and nanny statism. Heck, I'm just waiting for someone to declare this tax discriminatory against white people.

Meanwhile, here's a post by a public health type at the Huffington Post who's predictably ecstatic at the prospect of the tanning tax.

Posted by Philip Dawdy at December 21, 2009 02:04 PM

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Comments

Oh, they're going to be thinking up a lot of new taxes in the future.

Posted by: Blackeneth at December 21, 2009 05:01 PM

Sort of a tax the poor kind of thing considering it's replacing the botox tax but then the entire bill is a tax the poor bill because anyone who can afford health insurance already has it.

Posted by: Sally at December 22, 2009 06:47 AM

Someone should probably point out to those Senators that exposure to the sun, and to some extent tanning, is a very important way in which we may obtain vitamin D in biologically relevant quantities.

That vitamin, of course, is implicated in many health-determining functions of our bodies in a very positive way. There is much recently published research into the health promoting and disease preventing properties of vitamin D.

So to choose to tax tanning (which - it's true - was once thought to cause skin cancer) seems to be an ironic misstep in a bill that is supposed to enable better health care, when finally enacted.

Posted by: Sepp Hasslberger at December 23, 2009 12:59 PM

This seems collosally (spelled wrong) absurd to me.

Posted by: Sherry at December 23, 2009 01:25 PM