When do they stop being children? When they inherit the house?

Putting "dependent children," meaning young adults, under the outspread wings of parents' group health insurance policies, at least until age 26, is now a mandated option under Obamacare.

Living with mommy and daddy, or NOT, and married, or NOT, makes twenty-something "children" eligible, on a federal basis, to be added to "family" group coverage.

When do children stop being children? When they inherit the house?

Stretching the federal definition of "children" reflects a growing paternalism, a push back of coming-of-age. Time was, a young adult was "aged out" of family coverage at age 19, or when they finished being a full-time student. No more.

Costly it will be, of course, but who cares? Parents paying additionally for family coverage will be hit, yet again — along with keys to the family car and front door? It will be more expensive, of course, but who's counting? Not the smug Obamacrats. Nor their buddies in the "non-partisan" CBO.

Add that to the rising costs of all health insurance (estimated at 10-13% at first, more later, as other goodies kick in), along with untold thousands of jobs lost, courtesy of Uncle Sam, some measure of the damage to be done by passage of the health insurance bill. And still, no tort reform?

Boggles the mind, what power-mad Democrats are up to, ramming their agenda down our throats while protecting their union friends and trial lawyers.

Home is the place where, "when you have to go there," wrote poet Robert Frost, "they have to take you in." In this case, indeed, to be included under prior-existing group "family" plans.

Already "aged out" of parents' plan? The law says at policyholders (parents') option, you must be let back in under the new law. It does not matter if the "child" is a student, or not. Or married, or not. Sort of carte blanche re-entry, and don't even talk about pre-existing conditions.

Today, "children" up to that somehow magic age of 26 (not 19, or 24) can, if they wish and parents agree, stay on the "family" group policy. So the dependent kid, forever a child of lesser gods, is encouraged to remain tethered to apron strings.

The bill just passed and signed — to the gushing ga-ga euphoria of liberal news media – is effective six months from the date of bill-signing. For most plan years, this means 2011.

"Children" get to go on parents' policies regardless of their health condition. Remember? No pre-existing conditions. Or even their full-time student status, a benchmark of previous policy. The law refers to "dependent child," but does not define him or her. Does that mean they must be listed on the parents' tax returns? Presumably an army of bureaucrats will dish up reams of Government-speak regulations and clear up loose ends left by a careless Congress. Turning loose the staff of the newly-enlarged Dept. of Education to "make law" we, mere peon people, must swallow.

The White House website, along with compliant media, calls it "an instant benefit." Forget the consequences. Other goodies, and the injury they will certainly cause, await us in 2012, 2016 and 2018, in a most uncertain financial future.

Says the White House website: "Children [sic] would continue to be eligible for family coverage through the age of 26." Children?

Thirty states have laws permitting young adults to be under their parents' policies. Most states say 24, and require student status. In Illinois, such coverage is available to age 30 if a dependent is a veteran. In paternalistic New Jersey, it's age 31. Children? Hardly.

According to CNN, ". . . children can't have jobs that offer insurance, and they must be claimed as dependents on their parents' taxes." In most states, CNN adds, "dependents get booted off mom and dad's health insurance policy as early as age 19."

Under Obamacare, state laws are trumped if less than age 26. Federal law triumphs, Big Brother-like, over perennially squelched states' rights. "Millions of adult children," says CNN, with tacit approval, "will be eligible to be enrolled in their parents' group health plan."

No mention is made, or even estimated, of costs. Good Things apparently are free, it appears. At this point even self-insured (non-group) plans are tagged with this provision of the long-arm grip of Big Government. Who knew?

The new law exudes strong incentives for a young adult, still "the kid," to remain tied to mommy and daddy's loving care. Certainly there is a psychic cost of all this for the young adult, being treated, even called, a "child." More work for psychologists?

Disincentives are at work here, folks. All the result of the sleazy sausage-making in closed-door meetings, backroom deals, no promised hearings on C-SPAN, no five days for the public to examine this Frankenstein Monster. Promises? What promises? You must have heard him wrong.

Got all that? Yes, if nothing else, Obamacare is obtuse. And the rules of coverage, well, they're yet to be written. God help us all.

Costs of all this, now and in the future, is lost to most Democrats and their pundit pals, such as chronic liar Paul Krugman. They have blinders on, or blindfolds, not to see clearly that reality. In the unreal fantasy world they inhabit, trees grow money, and so do benefits.

About 30% of the nation's young adults, normally defined as between 19 to 29, are currently uninsured, according to Health Watch.com. Many scarcely need health insurance, being healthy beings – and seemingly, invincible – and choose not to take it. No longer. Now they can be fined, and their employers punished, for not bowing down to the new law, and emptying their pocketbooks.

More on the downside: "If you are a young adult and you're out buying your own insurance, this is going to be a minus for you because premiums are really going to go up," says John C. Goodman of the think tank National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas.

In the non-group market, says Dr. Goodman, premiums will soar. That itself would drive more young people into taking penalties for not carrying insurance, at least at first, with its paltry $95 dollars a year. After all, now they're healthy. And what the heck, if they get sick, why not just apply for health insurance then? Remember Robert Frost: They got to take you in. No pre-existing conditions!

It gets stickier: Two families, not one, could well be covered under the "family" group package, when dependent Jane Twentysomething gets pregnant. Women in her age bracket (still "children"?) are in their prime child-bearing age. In plain fact, birthrates are highest for women between ages 22 and 26 with a decline only after age 30.

Yet under her parents' family plan, Jane Twentysomething's child-birthing costs would be covered, under her parents' plan! Momentously, especially if dire complications set in for new mom or her newborn child.

Besides baby-sitting, grandparents get to pay the on-going increased premium costs for family coverage to cover TWO families. Solution? Higher premiums, then, for women on their parents' family plan? No way. Remember, "gender rating" policies is verboten. It's evil, something like that, to regulators.

For insurers – pity the whole lot of this vilified class of corporate n'er-do-wells – are caught in the traps not of their making. Pay up, they are told, and damn (or don't think of) the costs. Insurers thus have the largest unfunded mandate in all of history, exacerbated by this "reform" law that contains, amazingly, no tort reform.

Is the object of the Left in this country to bankrupt the present system and and replace it with a single-payer system? Could be. Taking down the present American enterprise system from the inside, forcing abject dependency on Big Government, is quite possible here and now, a sure pathway to socialism.

Democrats and their erstwhile media allies claim we are NOT on this winding road to socialism. That's disingenuous. Of course we are. So are we to bring on that British model of abominable personal health care? Its long waits, death awaiting on one's doorstep, waiting for Big Brother to act?

At least sunshine is still free. New moms and the rest of us will pay a 10% tax to tanning salons that use "ultraviolet light." (No kidding!) Such is the Kafkaesque nature of the new law, and rules to come, fashioned by good little bureaucrats. We can achieve that tan, those of us with white complexions, dangerous as that is, by a day at the beach. Free! Think of it as an open-air, tax-free tanning salon.

Absorb lots of Vitamin D in your day at the beach. It's still free.