Let me quote something from an interesting article in The New York Times:
. . . when does regulating a person’s habits in the name of good health become our moral and social duty? The answer, I suggest, is a two-parter: first, when the scientific data clearly and overwhelmingly demonstrate that one behavior or another can substantially reduce — or, conversely, raise — a person’s risk of disease; and second, when all of us are stuck paying for one another’s medical bills (which is what we do now, by way of Medicare, Medicaid and other taxpayer-financed health care programs).
I’d suggest the second part of the two-part answer is slightly incorrect, or at the very least, incomplete.
Because the statement, “when all of us are stuck paying for one another’s medical bills” should be broadened to include “one another’s poor behavior” which often ends in medical bills, legal bills or various other debts shoved under our Village rug. (Yes, I know the article is talking about aspirin, but I’m just saying . . . )
In other words, we shoulder the responsibility for much more than just Medicare, Medicaid and other types of public-financed things. The blowback from an un-helmeted motorcyclist who loses the argument with a truck can be financially staggering, and when the personal insurance dries up, (if it exists in the first place), The Village is left with the tab, which, along with excess and possibly lifelong medical bills, includes an increased insurance rate for the general population.
That’s just one, very simple example of how The Village, (Socialists all), is on the hook for the common weal, which is a good thing.
Anyway, don’t forget to take your aspirin.
