Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is this fear of paying for higher risk individuals based on? That more people will start bungee-jumping and skydiving or becoming firefighters and police officers? Part of the point of a nationalized system is that the costs offset- the healthier people use less services than they're paying for, but in exchange, you get to live in a society where everyone can get care regardless of employment, hobbies, or pre-ex…
It is a matter of fairness. The way insurance traditionally worked is that your cost was proportional to your risk; This is what actuaries do for a living. Insurance companies live and die on actuarial tables. I was asked whether I smoked for my life insurance -- that was a fair question. Of course this will always be a crude estimate, but drug use voluntarily puts one in a higher risk category and actuaries can give…
This is demonstrably false when you consider the quality of coverage in places like France and Denmark.
I find the fairness argument understandable from a distance, but it falls apart when you look closer and realize the amount of overhead involved in managing such a system where we make sure everyone pays according to their risk profile, which itself, would be dependent on numerous subjective measures not to mention the potential for intentional or unintentional inaccurate reporting. As an example, our tax dollars go to pay for infrastructure whether we're driving on the roads and bridges they pay for or not, and we don't pay more or get refunds if we use more or less roads. Would it be fairer to only charge you for roads you use? Absolutely, but it'd also be a ton of overhead to administer.