Monday, September 04, 2006

Government subsidised sex?

The American Libertarian Party last year highlighted the following story:
Medicare - the government-run health care program - will soon cover Viagra, the impotence drug.

A spokesman for the Health and Human Services Department confirmed to Reuters on Tuesday that the cost of Viagra will be covered because erectile dysfunction is "an illness" - and that means that you, the taxpayer, are literally paying for other people to have sex.

How did it happen?

Our Republican president, George Bush, supported this dramatic, er..., enlargement of the Medicare program, and a majority of Congressional Democrats agreed.

For the two older parties, it's just business as usual. But for Libertarians, it's the outrage of the week. (Bob Dole, are you listening?)
But is this one of those 'only in America' things? Could it happen here? The Age ran a discussion on the topic fairly recently.

1 Comments:

At September 04, 2006 7:55 pm, Blogger skepticlawyer said...

Sukrit, nothing would surprise me. As you go through life, you'll learn how sensitive some blokes are on this issue (when you're young and virile, it doesn't seem to matter much). Until the majority of our lawmakers are chicks, expect this kind of crap to keep happening ;)

 

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