Through proper parenting and a better educational system.
Let young people know from an early age on what the consequences of their actions are.
Screw the government and regulations, everybody is free to do whatever he or she wants to do with their health. But if they take the risk, they have to pay for the consequences. I'm not willing to pay for the risk somebody else is taking.
Educate in time + personal choices = freedom and accountability
I agree with you in principle, I'm big on personal responsibility.. the problem is that's not how it actually works, or even can work.
Example:
You're 20 years old, just getting started in life and don't have insurance yet.. You get injured by no fault of your own, or you have a medical issue you didn't know about.. you go to the hospital and what? They're supposed to determine if you can pay before allowing you in the door?
What ends up happening is that the costs associated with helping people who can't pay are transferred to those who can pay. The hospital has to raise their fees for service, and it is other people who end up paying those extra costs via higher insurance premiums and service fees.
The guy who eats sugary foods all day long, smokes, etc., is going to raise YOUR insurance premiums and the cost of YOUR care...
The mother who provides Ding Dongs and Twinkies to their 6 year old who already weighs 150 lbs is creating a healthcare industry nightmare.. a ticking time bomb that will go off in 20 years and result in a $50,000 hospital bill..
Who do you blame for those life choices? The mother? Or a 6 year old child?
The easiest way to control these costs is to 1) Make bad life choices more difficult to make 2) Make good life choices easier to make. That's not done with education, its done with regulation.. and its done at the cost of freedom and accountability, which obviously sucks..
Let me create a fictitious example:
The government outlaws all "added sugars" to foods.. It bans any and all food manufacturing from adding extra sugar that wasn't part of the original food ingredient that was grown. It also bans all sugar sales in grocery stores so you can no longer purchase 5 or 10 lbs bags of sugar.
Have your freedoms and liberties been curtailed and stepped on? It is still legal to grow your own sugar cane or beets and process your own for self consumption, but we know that most people won't bother doing that so they will live healthier lives. Children will no longer grow up obese and in 30 years, the heart attack rate drops 75% because the average person no longer has clogged arteries from eating sugar, and your insurance premiums are cut by 75% because the number of new diabetics drops to what it was in the 1920's.
A broken leg goes from $4000 to $400.. Common stitches go from a $1500 emergency room visit to $200.. all because the government curtailed the commercial distribution of sugar.. Will you feel enslaved? Will you feel trapped by that? Have your freedoms been harmed?
So what do you think?