Twenty-five year olds "allowed" to stay on parent's health insurance plans

By now, this is old news. One consequence of the recently-passed health care "reform" bill is that the compassionate and benevolent people in the federal government are going to "allow" "children" to stay on their parents' health insurance plans until the age of 26. Think about this for just a minute.

It is not necessary to have a law to allow you to do something! To the best of my knowledge, there is no reason why insurance companies could not have sold policies which would cover the little basement-dwellers. (I suppose there could be some government regulation to prohibit this. The insurance industry is highly regulated, and I am no expert.) What doubletalkers like Obama really mean when they say that 25-year-olds are "allowed" to remain on their parents' insurance plans is that insurance companies are forced to sell insurance plans which cover "adult children" up to the age of 26. Once again, our politicians have inserted themselves into our private matters in the name of "compassion". (And no doubt, they will take credit for it, even though they have done nothing other than tell somebody else what to do.)

What part of "private property" don't you understand?

This is from my home state of Michigan. Some nitwit with too much time on his hands has proposed a bill which would require all gas stations in Michigan to provide full service for the elderly and disabled at no additional cost. (It might be Bert Johnson, although the article only mentions him as a supporter of the bill.)

This reminds me of the recently-passed anti-smoking law, which bans smoking in all Michigan workplaces, with a few types of businesses exempted. Both of these bills are "good ideas" for which "there ought to be a law". Also, both of these bills impose rules on the owners of private businesses. (I would bet that most gas station owners would be willing to pump gas for elderly or disabled drivers, even without a law mandating that they do so. What this bill amounts to, then, is an excuse for a politician to grandstand and appear "compassionate" without actually having to do anything compassionate himself.) If Bert Johnson cares so much about the elderly or disabled, then let him pump their gas.