> Make it so that people have to pay for healthcare for themselves either out of pocket or via insurance instead of forcing hospitals to serve all comers (like

> Make it so that people have to pay for healthcare for themselves either out of pocket or via insurance instead of forcing hospitals to serve all comers (like any other service that is provided to people), and suddenly you get the best of both worlds: everyone gets to eat what they want, smoke what they want, inject what they want, and nobody else is forced to pay for the poor decisions of anyone else. Everybody wins. Unfortunately, your argument runs into an opposite extreme. Yes, freedom is important, but it's not the only thing that's important. There is different, but similarly strong argument that society should preserve life. Freedom dictates that people should be allowed to do what they want, even if it causes self-harm. Life preservation dictates that we should do whatever it takes to preserve life. Both of these values are are pretty fundamental, baked into most religions and political philosophies. Sometimes however, as in the case you point out, these two values butt against each other. The answer is not to choose one or the other, but to properly balance them.