I'm not quite sure where you are coming from on this. There is nothing in here that forces a parent to keep their kids on their insurance when they are 25 or to pay for that coverage. It does give parents an option, but there is nothing here that keeps them from kicking the kids out at 18 or keep paying the kids expenses until they are 35. That is a personal choice.
We sort of did this with our kids. There were limits all their lives, but certain things kicked in when they graduated from high school. If they went to college, they got a certain level of support, not unlimited and not a total free ride, but more support than if they did not attend college. Some did, some did not. By age 25, regardless, they were on their own. We set that limit early on and they knew what those limits were long before they hit 18.
Our youngest was affected by this age 25 thing. We kept him on our insurance that extra year because the rates were cheaper than he could get on his own. He was working and paying his bills. I did not say I paid for that premium. I said we kept him on our policy because it was the cheapest option. Our personal choice.
I'm not sure what you want. Are you suggesting that government should mandate that parents stop supporting their kids at a certain age and leave then on their own? That is more government interference in my personal life than I want. A lot more government interference. Exactly what do you want?
Chickened, I agree. If you force the insurance companies to cover people they don't want to cover, the overall cost is going to go up. It has nothing to do with "government" running the program itself. By mandating more coverage, the costs will go up. The insurance companies will see to that.
By congress voting to spread that cost out to more people, they have imposed a tax to cover those costs. I think Roberts got it right. It is a tax.
You may notice that I did not say I am for or against any part of this. There are some parts I'm OK with but some I really don't like, but that is not what my post is about. I personally don't like government interference with my personal, private life. But I used to work in "Big Business". From what I have seen, I don't want to throw all regulations out the window and let them have a total free reign. I really don't think most of us would want to live in that type of world. But they need enough freedom to make decisions. It is a balancing act.
Some of my opinions come from the coal fields of Appalachia, though that went on before I was born. Those mountain folks don’t forget real easily. I know what Tennessee Ernie was talking about in “16 Tons”.
Something I think would really help would be to give business some stability. Set the ground rules and leave them alone for a while so they can plan. This bouncing back and forth from free reign to putting the clamps on to free reign every election cycle really makes it hard for them to know what to do. A lot of their planning goes beyond the next election cycle.
