We are college students. We are fortunate to have parents who have health insurance and who love us enough to keep us on those plans. It scares the bejeezus out of us to think about the day we turn 22 or 23 and have to find our own jobs, or worse, our own coverage because the jobs we took - even though we went to college - don't provide great benefits.

So to hear that Iowa legislators want to let us remain on our parents' health-insurance policies till we're 26, well, wow - we're thrilled! It's a good idea, and it's got support in both House and Senate versions of health-care reform. It stands to reason this bill could pass.

And it's a proposal with merit. Young adults are relatively cheap to insure - they're not at that age when people begin to rack up the medical bills. Experts also say they're the group most likely to be uninsured because either the insurance they had when they were kids no longer applies or they're either working part-time jobs or at a job that won't offer such benefits until they become established. We have a lot to gain from this measure.

Of course, it doesn't come without flaws. These proposed changes would only apply to about 40 percent of families because the state has no power to regulate the health-insurance plans of large, multistate employers. This is good in the sense that the coverage someone's getting in New Jersey can also be gotten in Iowa, but it means that Iowa can't mandate that those companies offer these benefits.

There are a lot of negative things you can say about this bill - that it will cost too much, that it doesn't cover enough people to be effective, that 26 is way too old for children to be leeching off their parents - but it amounts to a step in the right direction. This isn't an opportunity for career-minded individuals to leech off their parents' employers; it's a stepping stone for recent grads and those trying to establish themselves in society to become financially independent, and we appreciate the government's looking out for us in this sense.