But since when does the government need to make home visits to kids who don’t make good grades (and by the way, who decides what “low achievement” is for a particular child?) How many of us were born to young moms, and are just fine, thank you? What about Dad enjoying an occasional cigar on the back porch at night; this now warrants a social worker coming out, making a “family-centered” plan and visiting the family on a regular basis?

The Gateway Pundit reports today that a provision in Obamacare’s Affordable Care Act allows for what the government is calling the “Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Visiting Program.”

What does this mean? The program is designed to award monetary grants to states that have “modest” home visiting programs currently, and would like to expand those programs. The goal, purportedly, is to increase the health of mothers and young children and things like “developing a family-centered approach to home-visiting.” This comes from an amendment in the Social Security Act.

What will it allow states to do? It will allow them access to “high-risk” homes where (among other “eligibility factors”):

• Mothers are under the age of 21
• People in the house use tobacco products
• Children have “low student achievement”
• Children have developmental delays or disabilities

I know, I know: they are only trying to help. But since when does the government needto make home visits to kids who don’t make good grades (and by the way, who decides what “low achievement” is for a particular child?) How many of us were born to young moms, and are just fine, thank you? What about Dad enjoying an occasional cigar on the back porch at night; this now warrants a social worker coming out, making a “family-centered” plan and visiting the family on a regular basis?

My dad used to say that the scariest sentence in the world was, “Hello, I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.” I’m starting to think Dad was right. But then, we never had a “family-centered” plan to help sort all that out.

This article first appeared on the Acton Institute’s Power Blog and is used with permission.