Sodium causes water retention, which causes your heart to work harder pumping extra fluid through your veins - especially in older years when your kidney function decreases. That’s kind of common sense. Especially in patients with heart failure, where significant edema can build up, salt restriction is an easy and effective preventative measure.
One of the reasons the cost of health care and health insurance is as high as it is because of people who just refuse to take care of themselves even after they are diagnosed with a serious medical condition - leaving the rest of us to pay more to cover the larger footprint resulting from their irresponsibility.
The problem is not with sick people, whether one thinks they caused their own condition or not, but with government intervention in health insurance and health care that forces people to pay for others. In a free market, there would be better care at lower prices for more people. After all the #1 risk factor for most illness is aging. That is why government health care seeks to limit care of the elderly.