We're all vicious, therefore we should all pay?

Sandeep Jauhar, a doctor, writes for the New York Times that healthcare "reform" will require people with good habits to subsidize people with bad ones, because if determining the price of an insurance policy by risk is outlawed, then those of us who pursue healthy lifestyles will be paying more so that those who don't can pay less. Dr. Jauhar is right, of course, but he goes on to imply that that's not such a bad thing.

Dr. Jauhar's argument: We all have bad habits that "society," in some form or another, has to pay for. He says, "But then I remind myself that we all engage in socially irresponsible behavior that others pay for. I try to eat right and get enough exercise. But then I also sometimes send text messages when I drive." He doesn't come out and say "who are we to judge?" but he strongly implies it, with his tale of a patient who didn't care for himself very well and then was denied care by a doctor who told him he needed to learn personal responsibility. He doesn't come out and say, "we're all bad, so we should all pay," but that's what he means.

What an abysmal view of human nature -- that we are all flawed, and that rather than try to make ourselves better, we should simply accept that we are flawed and help each other pay for the wrecks our foibles cause.

Ayn Rand offered a very different view of human nature -- in which pride, or moral ambition, is a virtue. Man is fallible, he can make mistakes -- so he isn't automatically perfect in his knowledge or his decisions, but he can strive to be morally perfect. He can, no matter what the situation, apply his reasoning mind, and he can refuse to tolerate moral laziness or weakness in himself.

That is how I want to view man -- as a being capable of finding out what steps he should take to sustain his life, and once he knows what those steps are, he is a being capable of acting on his judgment. Man is not a creature of his fatal flaws, and what flaws he does allow himself impose no obligation on others.