Sorry, folks, but Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City, has a legitimate point. If society, through government, has to pay your medical costs, then society, through government, has a right to tell you how much soda you can drink. And, for that matter, whether you can have a trampoline, and when you have to wear a helmet, and with whom you can have sex. Like to go four-wheeling, or skydiving, or bullriding, or dirtbiking? Like to eat a bacon double cheeseburger? Then don’t bill other people for your health consequences. Otherwise they have every right to say what you can and can’t do, and even what you must do. Eat a plateful of brussel sprouts every day, or else, by the precedent set by John Roberts, you can even pay extra tax. Get your exercise every day, or pay extra tax. I call this the Bloomberg effect.
Society has just as much right to outlaw unhealthy behavior, and to mandate healthy behavior, as you do to bill them for the consequences of those behaviors. I do not want the government telling us what we can and cannot do. I want to be free to make my own choices of my own free will, and I want people of other viewpoints to be free to make their own choices, whatever they may be, as long as they do not pick my pocket or break my leg.
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