Where do you draw the line with this? At what point do you say this is too much?
So, we get mandatory helmet laws and as is the case, people are still getting traumatic brain injuries because the protection that a helmet offers is very limited at the speeds skiers and riders typically ride. People are still getting injured in the park or riding trees. So, with your model, we then outlaw park riding to reduce this insurance cost burden. Well, shit! People are still getting hurt riding in the trees with broken legs, arms, ribs and some are paralyzed from neck and spine injuries. So, for the greater good, we now ban tree riding. Oops! We see speed is the big factor here so here comes the friendly insurance lobby and now we institute speed limits on the mountain; after all speed limits on the highways saved lives too and while we are on that subject, the 55 MPH speed limit saved a lot of lives so lets go back to that. Which then leads to this; you are required to carry liability insurance on your car so that in the event you injure someone, you have the ability to pay their damages. Well, since many of the skier and rider injuries are the result of collisions, lets mandate that every skier and rider carries personal liability insurance!
Now take this "progress" as you call it and go across the board with it in all recreation from ATV's, motorcycles, rafting, rock climbing, parasailing, kite boarding, snowmobiling, horseback riding, kayaking, etc, etc. Because we don't want anyone getting hurt out there and affecting our insurance costs we need to pass laws restricting people. I am a back country rider and every year people are injured or die in avalanches, so lets ban all backcountry riding.
Sorry, you call it progress all you want, to me it is Fascism and Nazism and I reject it utterly and will fight it every step of the way. The fact is that right now, the actual number of annual head injuries are so low as to make no negligible impact on the overall cost of insurance or medical care for the society. Move to universal single payer health care and the costs are even more spread out without a need for insurance company profit and it becomes even less significant.
There are far more important thing that could be addressed that is affecting your health care costs that a few people each year receiving traumatic brain injuries from skiing and snowboarding. Obesity is probably number one. So, pass a law requiring mandatory exercise programs for people above a certain weight like the military does. You could get all the fatties up on the hill skiing and riding and getting healthy and even without helmets, that would have a bigger impact on your health care costs.
See? We could go down this road of government intrusiveness for ever and call it progress. So tell me, just how far are you willing to go? At what point is there enough regulation? Where exactly is that line between "progress" and Fascism? I know where it is at and I have stated it; we are on that line right now in America. I want to know where that line is at for you.