I would add that it's not just in Canada, with your government health insurance system, that the healthy subsidize the sick on healthcare costs. We all pay via increased health insurance costs, whether the insurance is run by the government or not, when there are many unhealthy people in the insurance pool. The only way around this is to make people who lead unhealthy lifestyles pay more (unlikely to be popular when most people are leading unhealthy lifestyles), or somehow encourage more people to lead healthier lifestyles (much easier said than done). U.S. residents have been suffering through massive annual increases in health insurance premiums and/or benefit cuts, and the rise in obesity and sedentary lifestyles is one of the biggest drivers of that. And the car culture is one of the biggest drivers of obesity and sedentary lifestyles (not just speculatively...obesity rates are highly correlated to the average number of miles driven in an area). Active lifestyles, which can include cycling for transportation, should be heavily encouraged because they're one way we could actually make a serious dent in the spiraling healthcare costs.