[MichaelZuo]

How does this make sense when some people intentionally do things that cause illness?

And it’s not just Americans either, for example some Japanese like to intentionally eat fugu, meat from super poisonous puffer fish prepared in a very specific way.

Surely there’s no expectation for society to pay millions to treat someone who ate the 99.99th percentile fugu slice…

[arethuza]

Loads of people do things that might result in a visit to hospital - my wife was hospitalised after a climbing accident (with a mountain rescue team and separate helicopter based team), I've been treated for cycling accidents and because one of our cats bit me...

You can either accept the vast bureaucracy of evaluating risk and paying for each bit of treatment or the much simpler and cheaper option of paying for it in taxes and giving everyone the same level of basic care and not worrying too much about the fugu eaters...

[MichaelZuo]

You didn’t mention the third option?

No vast bureaucracy and no payment expectation.

But more realistically since the vast bureaucracy already exists… and isn’t going away in the foreseeable future, then it makes sense to utilize it.