JDN, I will try to split my answer, libertarian issue here and the rest over on health care politics.
GM put it succinctly (as he does), "If I'm paying, I have a say in your behavior".
I don't care if you don't care (but you are certainly entitled to that opinion) that you might lose your freedom or preferred recreation because I care about mine and I know plenty here care about the right to fight which would most certainly be among the first to go.
If you can ride Dukatis for recreation, not exactly third world poverty behavior, you certainly should not need someone else to be picking up your basic living expenses, healthcare, so you you don't have to dip into your own resources.
No intent to hit while you are down, but theoretically your choice of riding superbikes at higher speeds on mountain roads, in a nanny state system, jeopardizes my right to putz around carefully at 80 mpg on my Honda 200. Soon they will all be prohibited. Or they will limit you to what mine is and that is a different sport, likely of no interest to a Dukati enthusiast. You are perhaps willing to lose what you have. I am not.
Your right to your pursuit without harming others and my right to not pay for it are both clearly enumerated in the 9th amendment IMO.
"I choose to smoke cigars and ride motorcycles, someone else may choose to eat too much fatty food, etc. still there is not a 100% direct cause and effect. In many/most health issues a direct cause and effect cannot be found."
Government prohibitions and regulations and penalties have been issued with far less certain causation than those examples.
Let's take one of my summer favorites, waterskiing, passed down in our family through at least 4 generations. I remember my grandfather skied on one ski on his 70th birthday and my mother into her 80s, while my award winning daughter just got her first successful one-ski ride at 17, last weekend. Others pull hamstrings and fill up chiropractic wards with their pulls and twists. It burns fossil fuels. Why is that necessary - in some Washington bureaucratic view - it isn't! Banned. Dessert - banned. How would you like your shrimp cooked, battered with french fries, just kidding, we'll tell you how your food will be prepared. Whoops, shrimp was banned too. It just isn't necessary. Even lean beef is inefficient and oatmeal is on the latest list of foods to not advertise to children. There is no end when the alleged consequence is a public expense.
"My grandfather was a small town surgeon near Milwaukee, albeit he was quite famous in WI. If you were rich, my grandfather charged you top dollar, if you were poor my grandfather would take vegetables or whatever as payment. He never turned anyone away."
My grandfather and father were dentists serving the downtown community including some of its most famous citizens like our current govenor in his childhood, charged low, fair rates that no one ever questioned, worked long weeks and long hours well into their 80s because they loved what they did and serving people and did not charge people extra or give better service for being rich. Good grief.
"While I understand your point, ..."
No, I think that you don't.
