From a purely practical point of view - I don't care how it is in the US, you are obese and sick you pay higher healthcare premiums. But in Europe with state-run medical sector (which is most of the time really good, don't get me wrong) it kinda rubs me the wrong having to pay for people's bad life choices. Smokers at least contribute in part through the taxes on cigarettes.
Yup. Thats the same view I have.
Canada is universal healthcare like most places, and irresponsible people using up medical care and costs come from smokers, alcoholics, drug users and any other weird shit, fine if you need medical care to stay alive thats fine.
But pay up something to comp the government (and taxpayers back). Anything. Even if its just a couple grand.
A guy accidentally breaking his leg gets covered, but still has to pay for crutches. But a guy doing a swan dive off a roof thinking he's superman is covered. Or a cocaine user gets covered in drug rehab. Figure that one out.
Now someone will say, they pay taxes so they should be covered. Well, I think reasonable people think it should be for reasonable things or out of control incidents. As opposed to over the top irresponsible things eating up more than fair share.
It should be no different than unemployment insurance payouts. It's meant to comp a person if they lost their job due to something out of their control (not at fault), and they are still putting in effort to get a job back. You dont get EI if you arent looking for a job in the meantime or it was your fault for getting fired.