Healthcare Bill & Botax (cont.)

So the Democrats pushed their healthcare bill through last night and it is one step closer to law, after it's approved by the Senate, then reconciled with the House bill and finally President Obama.

But some people are saying this could be good for the industry, citing brothels and tobacco as examples:

1. Nevada brothels actually wanted to give tax revenues to the state: Anytime you’re going to take tax money, the state’s not going to view you as a relic and put you out of business,” said a lobbyist for the Nevada Brothel Association. Legislators were unwilling to accept.

2. Because of the vast amount of taxes the US government has been taking from Big Tobacco, it actually gives Big Tobacco considerable political clout. They even did a study on this in Korea, where they found the more a local government derived revenues from tobacco companies, the less likely it was to participate in anti-smoking campaigns.

While in these two cases it makes sense that the cost of taxing your industry is worth the benefit of political influence, I don't know if the plastic surgery industry is comparable. First, plastic surgery doesn't cause cancer (at least we don't think it does yet) and it's also not exactly like prostitution either.

Well I emailed the big companies (Allergan, Johnson & Johnson, Medicis, etc) asking them about their views. They haven't gotten back to me yet but I think the plastic surgery industry's complaints about this tax answers this question about political influence.