Where public healthcare has problems..

Personal liberties, we're told, are an important aspect of living in the Western world. The idea that we, as Canadians, are truly free to pursue anything we want is claimed to be one of the tenets of our political system, as well as our culture.

http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100518/CGY_Stunting_Ball_100518/20100518?hub=CalgaryHome

Then why, as soon as somebody does something risky, do we think he should be imprisoned for putting his life at risk?

The justification many people give is that if he gets hurt, we have to foot the bill on his medical care. This justification has several problems, but I'll focus on one; why should we foot the bill on half the people who get hurt?

If some middle-aged woman doesn't know how to drive properly and gets into an accident, she's not doing anything as blatantly stupid as this young man, but she's still doing something stupid. Most people would probably sympathize with her over the stunt kid, but I don't see any reason her medical bill is better to pay than his. Most injuries are caused by stupidity in some form, barring diseases and disorders that people are doomed to get. Generally, if people are doing things intelligently, they won't get hurt.

You can't have "universal" healthcare and then pick and choose who deserves to get it based on the cause of their injuries. Either eliminate the public healthcare system, or accept that people in this country have the right to make stupid choices with their own mortality, and that the system you promote forces you to foot the bill.

Your healthcare system limits my freedom. Let me, and everyone else, be responsible for their own safety. Stop telling me what to do just because you're worried you'll have to pay the bill; I never asked you to. You took the suffering on yourself; you're nothing but a martyr.

Edit: I'd just like to add, a lot of the comments are telling this kid to grow up. Grow up, get a good normal job at a good normal company, where it's likely that one of its products or services will harm someone at some point, but none of that is your fault. Surfing on the roof of a car is way worse. Especially since nobody got hurt.

Growing up seems to involve lying, denial and abstaining from anything exciting, while reducing yourself to a safety analyst. These comments are the modern equivalent of telling those damn kids to get off your lawn. When a comment like this is made, I'm forced to assume it's mostly losers sitting on the news, hating kids who lived their childhood fully. Why? Because these sad old losers were probably boring. What do people often regret more than the things they do?

The things they don't do.

-Why not?