Quote:Consider the use of motorcycle helmets or seat belts. At most, their use should be regulated by insurance companies (i.e., failure to use the safety device invalidates your claim, or they could charge a 'risk' premium). The government is in no way directly effected by your choice, yet in many areas it mandates the use of these devices 'for the common good'. Now consider the situation if the government payed for your health care. Your choices would have a (probably trivial) financial impact on the government.There is a fine line between legitimate safety regulations and simple meddling. In the case of seatbelts, unrestrained passengers (especially in the front seat) can become projectiles and a danger to others, so there seems to be a case there. It's probably unnecessary to legislate (as opposed to educate) about motorcycle helmets, so long as children aren't involved.
I'm much more concerned about manufacturer safety (your car must be at least X safe, used correctly) than I am about regulating peoples' personal behaviour, which is a tricky business that treads very close to individual rights. The case could be made that the roads are in some sense public places where the government should have at least minor powers to regulate overall safety. I wouldn't push that argument too far, but it at least makes a little sense. What I eat, and what I do with my leisure time, are private decisions, and unless I choose to jog in the middle of the road, or eat durian on the bus, I don't see how such regulation could be consistent with even a modicum of personal liberty. By similar logic, if a shrink costs money, the government would have a similar incentive to outlaw depressing thoughts. And now we're in Orwell territory.
To me, it's better to just bite the bullet, pay most of the extra costs of saving people from their own stupidity, and leave it at that. (There are exceptions for triage. Alcoholics should not receive scarce liver transplants, etc...) Once you start descending into the morass of medical moral hazard, you wreck a lot of lives, disturb a lot of excrement, and I'm not convinced it even saves you a single nickel, as a society if not as a government.
Quote:Do you really think that the same type of people that gave us Prohibition would really restrain themselves from legislating their life style prejudices in the name of fiscal responsibility?No, I really don't. But I did say they have "no business whatsoever," which doesn't preclude people meddling where they have no business. It just means I think they aren't justified in doing so. There's a long history of such pointless interference, and I had presumed (hoped?) opposition to it would be one of the rare points of agreement between Kandrathe and I.
-Jester