Can, needs or should, I would add. My perspective doesn't seem to be very popular, however I could never understand how laws that are intended to protect us only from ourselves are compatible with the philosophy of law that we're supposingly embracing in the west.
The only rational argument for these laws would be the burden on the national-health system for injuries sustained on the head during riding a bike. This could be solved by allowing people to opt-out of the free national health system coverage explicitly in these instances of injuries, if indeed statistics show that there is a significant burden imposed on it. And still there is the counter-argument that this would be biased -what about people who are engaging into leisure activities with higher-risk, "extreme-sports" and such. I wouldn't be surprised if even the cost of treating normal sports-related injuries is higher than the cost of head-related injuries of bikers riding with no helmet. Why not enforce wearing full protective gear when engaging in every sport?
If we start with this mentality, it's only a slippery slope that would lead us in a place we don't want to be.
Same as with smoking taxes. It started with the justification that it's fair to counteract the increased cost that smokers have on the national health system. A perfectly fair reasoning. But by now these taxes have increased so much that this justification is no longer convincing -instead they are widely accepted as a sort of "luxury tax" that smokers pay, no longer to cover the cost of the medical treatment they are more likely to receive on average, but just "because that's how it is". This income is not even earmarked for the health system in many cases. They also started covering things that evidence don't support they pose any or as much of a risk as cigarette smoking (Vaping), and in some cases -Italy, IIRC-, even with official lawmaker justification that these products deprive the state from tax income that they would receive through the smoking tax. A completely illogical argument that I was surprised to see it made nobody blink twice.
So I think such laws are really a demonstration of government acting as a for-profit entity, squeezing money from whatever they think they can get away with.
Oh, there are scores of risky activities that can result in medical costs that some people (libertarians?) would prefer that we didn't socialize.
Incorrect use of OTC drugs; crossing the road while diddling a mobile phone; drinking alcohol; hell, pushing your toddler on a swing in a playground. Perhaps socialized medicine should refuse to treat people who have declined vaccination, or declined a bowel cancer screening. Maybe climbing a ladder should close you off from socialized medical care. Perhaps you shut yourself out if you ever hang out with sick people.
Obviously, I'm not serious.
For me, the big thing about socialized medicine is that it's universal. It's a massive benefit to everyone, if people with people with infectious diseases like TB, diphtheria and cholera can get treatment for free, without producing ID or proof of entitlement. And that's true whether or not they have legal status, as immigrants or whatever.
I agree, I was trying to follow the only line of reasoning I can think of that would rationalize the existence of such laws in a way that doesn't break the concept that we should be able to choose for ourselves the amount of risk we want to be exposed in (which is generally accepted in other cases of everyday life).
> doesn't break the concept that we should be able to choose for ourselves the amount of risk we want to be exposed in
I'm not sure that this right to regulate one's own personal risk environment is actually a thing. It sounds rather vague; you could use it to justify almost any act. "I think you're a threat; I choose not to expose myself to the risk you pose, so I eliminate you".
Perhaps I didn't phrase it properly. I meant, "the concept that we should be able to choose the amount of risk we want to expose ourselves in". Which is generally accepted as a personal right, based on the premise that we, and nobody else, owns our body. But every now and then we see some laws that seem to break that (such as in this case). If we didn't accept this principle, then would have to agree to also punish suicide attempts, or a number of other things that would sound absurd.
