Do you have your hooker card?

I'm only just now getting back around to reading the non-family-connected e-mails I've received in the past week, and -- in light of the recent chatter from so many on the topic of Universal Health Care -- came across a very nice TCS Daily article by Arnold Kling: Prostitution Insurance.

Unfortunately, shifting the costs of prostitution insurance to taxpayers was fiscally impossible. Prosticare, the government's popular insurance program for the elderly, was projected to run into deficits of tens of trillions of dollars in another 50 years. Forestalling such a bankruptcy was going to require drastic cuts in future benefits. Trying to expand Prosticare to cover everyone would have forced such cuts to take place today, and no politician wanted to risk a confrontation with senior citizens. So although politicians talked a lot about universal single-payer prostitution coverage, they never seriously proposed enacting it.

The American public had grown accustomed to enjoying unlimited access to the services of prostitutes. They continued to be averse to paying directly for sex, and they had become increasingly insulated from having to do so. As a result, America's share of GDP going to prostitution, already the highest in the world, rose rapidly.

Now, I'm all for getting stuff for free (especially as I'm in the income bracket I'm in... or rather, the income brackets I'm out of). But I can see at least a few of the long term effects of my demanding something out of everybody else's pockets. I'm not liking it at all.

I am liking the comparison, though. Please, take the time to read the whole article.