Commentary: Government promises subsidized health care to attorneys.

Byline: David Ziemer

Yesterday, I discovered that I am no longer young.

Yes, I know, those of you in the Milwaukee Young Lawyers' Association or the Milwaukee Conservative Young Professionals, or other organizations like that, could have informed me of this fact long ago.

But I didn't realize it until yesterday. Two things triggered the discovery.

First, I was talking to a young woman who also happened to be a big Chicago Bears fan, when I discovered that she wasn't even born yet when the Bears won the Super Bowl in 1986.

For whatever reason, it had never occurred to me until that moment that there are people in this world who simply didn't even exist on the greatest day of my life. Oh well, call me self-absorbed; I've been called worse.

The second thing that happened was that Governor Doyle announced an emergency rule for the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance, forcing insurers to allow their insureds to include their adult children on their health insurance policies until they are 27.

At first, it just struck me as officious and regressive meddling with the market that would force lower-income families to forego any insurance for the benefit of wealthier families.

Obviously, the emergency rule will raise the price of family coverage policies. So for every upper-middle-class 26-year-old who gets to ride on his parents' insurance pursuant to the rule, X number of children under the 18 will lose their insurance because their parents can't afford the increase.

I'm no economist, so I don't know whether X equal 3 children, or 0.3, but it's definitely not zero.

After my initial disgust with the government faded, though, I started sorting through the cobwebs of my ancient mind and doing some calculations. Let's see... I graduated from high school at 17; then college at 21; and then law school at 24. And 24 is a lower number than 27.

It hit me then that this...