A neat idea to fund health reform!

Early this month, a surtax on the very rich was proposed to help pay for health care reform.

This proposal is fair. But with the DLC/GOP two-headed hydra gumming things up as usual, you can't count on it ever becoming a reality.

So now a new proposal is being bandied about. This one would slap a hefty tax on cosmetic surgery, to pay for reforms.

I'm not talking about surgery for people disfigured by injury or illness. These surgeries are generally not considered cosmetic. I'm talking about facelifts for the 90-year-old socialite who tries to look 20 again.

Procedures that are unnecessary and strictly cosmetic should be taxed. When I buy a snack, it's taxed. When you buy a book, it's taxed. And where does this money go? None of this seems to go to health care. Shouldn't luxuries be taxed in order to pay for a valuable program?

This plan is so simple that I should have proposed it first. It's the type of thing I would have publicly advocated 15 years ago - but I've spent later years being force-fed endless diatribes about how rough the rich have it, so I figured I better not bring it up.

Meanwhile, I'm still seeing tirades from trust fund babies complaining that public health systems like that in Britain won't cover cosmetic dentistry for them.