Food, Workout and Coffee Insurance

Some five-and-a-half years ago, our own Mike Feehan (commenting under a pseudonym) proposed a "national, single-grocer plan." He observed that "many people go hungry because wholesome groceries cost too much."

Mike envisioned a national ID card to facilitate the program, and a means-testing component so that what we now call "1%'ers" would pay their fair share.

In today's Wall Street Journal, assistant editor Allysia Finley strikes a similar tone. Observing that insurance plans must now pay for convenience items birth control, she suggests that this is simply not enough - that plans should also be required to pay for "[f]itness club memberships ... Massages ... Yoga classes ... Coffee ... [and a] Salad bar"

Now, one may pooh-pooh this as an overreach, but as Ms Finley points out, it's really not so much that as an acknowledgement that the government is simply living up to its role as self-appointed arbiter of what its citizens must buy.

After all, it's for our own good.