If Bob wants to smear his brain all over the highway because it's his
personal responsibility whether or not he wears a helmet, I'm cool with
that. But why should I have to contribute to his maintenance when he ends
up in a persistent vegetative state from doing something stupid?
And should I, who do prudently wear the mandated personal protective
equipment, be denied care because the resources that might be used to
treat me were already used up by someone who refused to do so?
Or should I be taxed additionally so that there are enough facilities to
provide care to both? Especially when the additional cost might be easily
avoided by enforcement of the helmet laws?
Instead of "the State", say society has an interest to force individuals
to take self protective measures to the extent that their failure to do so
adds an unfair burden on the rest of society.
Personal responsibility is all well and good, but you must accept ALL of
the responsibility.
Indeed, but before making helmet-wearing compulsory you'd need to be
satisfied that it would in fact reduce the cost to you. But actually,
experience in different parts of the world shows that it wouldn't, that it
would increase the cost of healthcare generally because so many people would
stop cycling and taking exercise, leading to an increase in such things as
heart disease.
Additionally, you need to consider all the other activities that increase
the general cost of health care, and consider banning those activities too,
or excluding them from healthcare. The largest costs of a healthcare system
are for things like heart disease and other problems brought about by
people's lifestyles - too much smoking and drinking, eating the wrong food
and not taking enough exercise. If you really want to reduce your tax bill
then this is what you should be going after.
You would also, of course, have to give the frontline medical personnel some
reasonable guidance on how to triage based on your value judgements, rather
than on medical need. For example, when I broke my wrist after falling off a
bike, entirely due to my own carelessness, should I have been billed? Or was
it not my fault that my wrist broke, because I'm unfortunate enough to have
low bone density?
These problems can't be dealt with on a case-by-case basis which is why, if
we're to have a universal health service, it must be based on clinical need
and not on value judgement, and why people should not be forced to change
their behaviour to satisfy the penny-pinchers.
Bob
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