I learned about this from Ralph Luker at Cliopatria. According to the Gainesville Sun:
University of Florida employees have to pledge that they’re having sex with their domestic partners before qualifying for benefits under a new health care plan at the university.
The partners of homosexual and heterosexual employees are eligible for coverage under UF’s plan, which will take effect in February. The enrollment process began this month, and some employees have expressed concern about an affidavit that requires a pledge of sexual activity.
Apparently, the university wishes to ensure that when they offer benefits to domestic partners, they are offering those benefits narrowly. One’s lover is okay, one’s roommate or one’s sister isn’t. The university, however, doesn’t require sexual activity from heterosexual married couples. Even those couples in what the church used to call "spiritual marriages", entirely unconsummated, can exchange benefits down in Gator-land. But you gay and lesbian folk in domestic partnerships had darned well be getting it on if y’all expect the university to pony up for your annual dental exam!
Obviously, as Ralph suggested, the question of ensuring compliance raises all sorts of hilarious possibilities. Will oral sex count? How often? Once a year? Once an academic term? To whom must one report? Must at least one of the participants be clad in the Orange and Blue colors of the university?
Social conservatives will probably suggest that this silliness is the inevitable by-product of legitimizing any sort of relationship other than heterosexual marriage. But I’m inclined to think that the problem lies in our enduring cultural belief that sex is needed to legitimize the most important relationships of our lives. It’s simply not the case any longer — if it ever was — that those to whom we are most connected and on whom we must most heavily depend are either our blood relatives or our spouses with whom we are sexually intimate. For any number of reasons, we may find ourselves in emotionally intimate and financially intertwined relationships with folks to whom we are not related by blood and with whom we have chosen not to be sexual.
What harm does it bring to the University of Florida if, say, Professor Doe is, like my fellow blogger David Morrison, a gay man who chooses to be celibate out of fidelity to the church? If Professor Doe and his life partner build a home together but are never genitally active out of their own commitment to Catholic teaching, is their relationship less legitimate (and less deserving of benefits) than if they were regularly helping each other to orgasm?
I support domestic partnerships for everyone on the following rule: All those working for the university get to pick one other person (for married persons, the presumption will be the spouse) to whom they can give their benefits. It could be a sibling, it could be a best friend, it could be a mother, it could be the cute barista at the local Starbucks. If it’s just one person (and their minor offspring), what does it matter whether the partnership includes a sexual component or not? The cost to the university shouldn’t increase, and the salutary message would be that the institution recognizes that love and enduring commitment don’t hinge on blood kinship or shared genital activity.
In the meantime, we can have fun with the Gators, and hope for more details on the enforcement provisions of the policy.
Geez, this is ridiculous - for the first time in a long time I agree with you Hugo. We as a society should get the hell out of people’s lives, sexual and otherwise.
Look for Four Horsemen, Doc. I’m on board too.
Skeered yet?
Uh oh. Pestilence can’t be far behind if the three of us are together on this… ;-)
The cost to the university wouldn’t increase, but the cost to the insurance provider would — right? And wouldn’t the provider then retaliate somehow against the university? Your standard would be hard for any individual state or company to adopt.
But I agree with you that “having sex” seems like a pretty poor way of determining who should qualify for benefits.
I think the cost to the university *would* increase, and it would be - as usual - passed on. You’re still increasing the number of people insured, which is a premium increase.
I don’t see how the cost would increase if we simply say everyone is allowed one domestic partner. How is that more of a cost than having an entire staff of married heterosexuals?
Continuing, current policy privileges sexual activity over other forms of relationship. Given that we are already providing DP benefits to gay couples and childless straight ones, you can’t argue that these policies are designed to encourage reproduction. So by what standard can we continue to defend the idea that sexually-based relationships are deserving of protection that nonsexual ones are not?
Because several people without a partner, straight or no, will put non-romantic partners on it. That increases the amount any way you slice it.
But to do otherwise is to privilege the partnered; the single end up subsidizing them!
If the issue is whether the partnership is romantic, why not make people swear to that?
I am assuming, according to this regulation, those who have sexual activity with their regular prostitute can legitimately give health care to the prostitute.
I am assuming, according to this regulation, those who have sexual activity with their regular prostitute get to legitimately give health care to the prostitute.
Wonder, that might be a fine idea.
How on earth, Thomas, is the university going to enforce romance?
Two dates per semester with Valentine’s day mandatory? Regular flower exchanges? The mind boggles…
Hmmmm…..y’know, to take Family and Medical Leave, you don’t have to declare the medical condition that you have. To require that would be a violation of HIPAA laws. So….since frigidity and impotence are recognized medical conditions, wouldn’t requiring a “sexual activity” pledge be a violation of HIPAA?
Just sayin’.
Really, I don’t think this “requirement” is that far off from what other companies require to offer DP benefits. The problem is that without a clear-cut legal relationship (like marriage), it is difficult to define/prove the extent of a relationship.
I just looked up the affadavit I was required to sign to secure benefits for my partner. We had to pledge this:
- We currently reside together in an exclusively mutual commitment similar to marriage and intend to continue in the relationship indefinitely;
- We are jointly responsible for basic living expenses;
- We are not married to anyone else;
- We are 18 years or older;
- We are not related by blood closer than allows by marriage (per state code);
- We are mentally competent to consent to the contract when the domestic partnership began; and
- We are the other’s sole domestic partner and responsible for the other’s common welfare.
They neatly side-stepped putting anything about “sex” in by just saying that the relationship should be similar to marriage. Much better than the version you quote. Also, Wonderperson, I think this pretty much eliminates the regular prostititue idea.
Frankly, the far more invasive part of the process for me was providing “proof” of our relationship — I had to send statements from our joint checking accounts. I don’t think that married couples need to provide copies of their marriage certificates, so I rather resent the need to run around in circles to prove that my relationship is worthwhile. Furthermore, my company required that this “proof” be at least 12-months old. How well would it go over if you couldn’t provide benefits for your new wife for an entire year?
At any rate, the “just one person, any person” idea you suggest has certain appeal, but I think it would be unworkable for a number of reasons. Picture this scenario — a young, single man decides to help out his elderly aunt and signs her up for benefits. All is fine for years, until the man meets the woman of his dreams and marries her. Now what? Does he yank benefits from his aunt? Or does he carry on as he has been, leaving the new wife out in the cold?
I guess it wouldn’t hurt for companies to offer the option, but I don’t think many employees would take them up on it, once they actually think through what it would mean for a future spouse/domestic partner.
As for the cost point - whenever companies add DP benefits, someone always brings up the cost issue. I like to point out exactly what Hugo did - if the company cannot afford to cover the spouse of every employee, they are basically admitting that the single employees are subsidizing insurance for the married people. Hardly a fair situation, especially since many of us are only single because the law forces us to be.
This may be the first bit of discrimination against asexual people I’ve personally come across.
It reminds me of something I read not too long ago that New Zealand’s immigration policy included something about sexual activity. I think the gist was that when a couple moved here there was some antiquated question/section that confirmed that a couple coming into the country were in a sexual relationship. I think it was removed and that’s why they were reporting on it. Very odd.
But to do otherwise is to privilege the partnered; the single end up subsidizing them!
Such is the case anyway; our laws on marriage do the same.
Which is why I have long been a proponent of getting the government out of the marriage business; used to be you went to the church and married, and just notified the government that you did so. No asking the Mommy State for their blessing.
Then came the question of miscegnation (Racial intermarriage) so the government decided you needed a license - and their permission - to get married.
Rather checkered history, that government marriage.
You know, Gonzman, it’s interesting. The exact same sets of arguments have been made about federal income taxes and the ability of couples to file joint returns. Also, things that might make you laugh: the right to file jointly is an artifact of the patriarchy. Yes, I’m completely serious.
Without contributing to major thread drift, when husbands were making all the money, they wanted to divert income to their wives to diminish their personal tax liability. Through a series of legal misadventures, the rules ended up varying from state to state, which seemed decidedly unfair. Hence, the current system, replete with discrimination against unmarried couples and the marriage penalty.
It’s one of those ideas that’s great in theory and hell in practice.
Hugo, do you mean how are they going to define it? Because they run into that with sex, as well. As to enforcing it, they can only do what they can with sex: make people swear to it. They are not asking if people will have sex, only if they have. They can’t go back and check, even if they wanted to. So they will take folks’ word for it. They can as easily do that with sex.
LOL! That’s so funny! I completely didn’t even think about blogging about this but yes, it’s true. I asked a friend of my mine what the thinking was behind it and he said it’s so he can’t go get on my friend’s health care plan because she doesn’t have a partner. But what in the world would be so wrong with that? If she wants to put him on there, why should anyone have a problem with it? It doesn’t affect anyone else.
And Barb, given that this is your school, I ought to have asked you what you thought pronto!
Whoa, hold on a second! Someone, somewhere, has to pay for that. I own a business. I offer benefits. And when you put another person on it, the price goes up. I may have turned 4 or 5 million dolars in a year, but when I got done paying for every niggling little thing - and you’d be stunned at how bad you get nickle and dimed out there - I brought home in the owner’s draw barely more than a couple of my employees. I have some people complain bitterly that I’m “making” them pay $180 out of month - but I’m paying $420. Another person, and I get charged more by the insurance company, to the tune of another $400. More if they had identifiable health risks. Multiply that by 20 employees. Multiply that by 12 months. Subtract it from $70 - $80k. You know, if I can’t live on the take home, I fold up shop, go to work somewhere, and NOBODY has job or health insurance. Or I have to raise prices, lose business, then have to lay people off. Or I have to find insurance that doesn’t cover as much. Or I have to stop offering it altogether. And if you make a law that forces the insurance companies to offer more, they raise prices. Same result - you really think THEY are going to absorb the costs?
And the government can even buy a gedank hammer for under three figures, and you are going to trust them to get a good buy on insurance? Lord, whatever you are smoking, give me some.
And It’s while and good for people living in the academic ivory tower to pompously and piously talk about how I should pay more, but if you’d have me work as the owner - the one who takes all the financial risk - for poverty wages, I have news: Lincoln freed the slaves about 150 years ago.
Indeed. Gonz, that’s the best over-the-top bit of rhetorical flourish I’ve seen in quite some time.
Social conservatives will probably suggest that this silliness is the inevitable by-product of legitimizing any sort of relationship other than heterosexual marriage.
And they’d be 100% wrong. This comes out of the same desire to dictate people’s private behavior that they they have, even if the behavior being dictate has slightly wider margins.
Really, I don’t think this “requirement” is that far off from what other companies require to offer DP benefits.
Really, it is. What’s wrong with a) a simple affidavit saying you and your domestic partner are, well, partners and b) putting a time limit on how long you can go before you are allowed to designate somebody else? Companies shouldn’t be asking about domestic partners’ checking accounts or sex lives any more than they should be asking about mine. Has anyone EVER had an employer require proof of marriage?
Any benefits marriage hands out legally are an award, not for having the proper kind of sex, but for commitment. The government doesn’t know, and doesn’t ask, whether my husband and I have ever had sex, nor do any of the other entities that treats us differently for being married. The fact that we’ve put ourselves in a somewhat difficult to get out of contract (which, even in this time of no fault divorce, would still take us at least six months to end here in California), the fact that we’ve made ourselves reponsible for each other’s debts, share property, etc., would be jointly responsible for any kids we might have, etc., is enough.
If people want to demand more commitment of domestic partners than whatever their current law involves, fine (the California law which improved domestic partner benefits considerably went that route). If companies want to set time limits for switching domestic partners around, as mythago suggests, fine.
But treating sex as a proxy for commitment is just silly. I mean, honestly, if you really wanted to beat that system and not lie, how hard, really, would it be to have sex, just once, with whatever good friend you wanted to make your domestic partner? In return for the two of you saving a bunch of money long term?
Okay - my owner’s draw was $72,000 last year. I have 9 single employees. 300 X 12 X 9 = 32,400
I work 60 to 70 hours a week. Multply that by 50 - I take two weeks off during the year. that’s wind up being 12 - 13 an hour, as the business owner. And that doesn’t even factor in my taxes and my insurance. That $72,000 isn’t my mad money. Then I have my personal property taxes, my mortgage for my property in the south of the state, and my bills for a child who has just started college.
The benefits I offer include not just insurance, but a wage that is about 10% above the prevailing wage - I start a Tech with an A+ and MCP at 30,000, plus insurance; and I have news, our local Catholic High School offer vocational courses where students can have those certs upon graduation. Plus I pay for certification classes and tests full price up to 2 a year - plus if they pass, they get raises.
The tech company at the north end of the county pays $24,000 to start, and has only marginally better rates on the insurance they offer - and I start mine at 90 days, they start theirs at 1 year. Plus they don’t pay for classes, and will only pay after the fact for passed tests, which may or may not merit a raise; a System Engineer’s cert is several tests and they don’t give raises until after you have the full certification. I also pay overtime on Salaried employees after 48 hours, though at straight rate. They pay no overtime at all.
Unlike a lot of companies, when I say that my employees are my most valuable asset, I mean it - I do better and am more nimble, because I get better people, because I pay them what they are worth. When I reinvest in my company, I reinvest first in the employees, in bettering them, and raising wages. My other costs are by and large fixed - they are uncontrolled. Rent on facilities, materials, utilities, vehicles, insurance on same, fuel, loans, accountants, payroll processing, credit card processing - there is precious little or nothing I can do to alter them, and even then it’s only a matter of shave some here, shave some there - ultimately a pittance. I might be able to shave 10 grand or so from operational costs, which would drastically lower the quality of customer service and the work environment. I have to pay subcontractors, like those who do my wiring. I have to pay volume licensing for mail filtering so I can offer the service. The list of taxes I have to pay on property, inventory, and such is staggering. The only really controllable cost I have is in what I pay people. If I get mandated to do more, that money has to come from somewhere; and the first thing I would have to do if someone said “you *MUST* offer partner benefits to anyone equally” is to withdraw it from everyone.
I have, right now, $20,000 worth of quipment in the back. This came from some schmuck who placed an order, put a down payment on it, and promptly went Tango Uniform in bankruptcy court, and to add insult to injury, I’m being sued because his creditors want me to fork over material he hasn’t payed for yet, and I am fighting them in court. Ka-ching. More cash I might as well have just taped to a cardboard tube and hung in the restroom. Not to mention the time I am wasting dealing with idiot lawyers, judges, and assorted bureaucrats. Non productive time, time I can’t spend doing the job of being the boss, and money I have to spend paying someone to do for me what I could otherwise do for myself.
While things like the above are great in theory, I figured it up a couple years ago - I spend over a hundred thousand a year complying with pissant and nonsense micromanaging government regulation, fees, and taxes for services I don’t even recieve - but I’m subsidizing for everyone else because I somehow have these “deep pockets.” You get that out of my face, and I guarantee - I can offer fully paid, no questions asked, full family coverage for every employee just to keep the good people I have.
All respect Hugo - but people who talk about how businesses do business should actually try running one in the real world, on the high wire, without a safety net, for a few years. Then tell me if I am “over the top.”
Or I could just acept the 9 million buyout offer from my competitor, be rid of it lock, stock, and barrel - and then leave everyone to fend for themselves with them. Somehow I don’t think they’ll keep the wages and benefits, considering that when I inserted it as a condition of sale it broke the deal for them. But what the heck. I’ll let ya’ll take it up with my people when they ask why.
Or maybe you already had that discussion with them back a couple Novembers ago.
But Gonz, my point was that you’d have to pay that regardless of whether the second person on someone’s healthplan is their significant other or their next door neighbor. If every employee gets one, what does it matter WHO that other one is?
Or should businesses just have a preference for non-dominant-paradigm folks?
Oh and btw, they just changed the language. Here’s the link to the the story: http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060124/LOCAL/201240340/1078/news
Mythago,
yes, my employer (the Air Force) required me to provide a copy of our marriage certificate when I added my husband and his 2 boys as dependents, so that I could get ID cards for them, add them to the TRICARE healthcare plan, and get paid the with-dependents housing allowance.
There are companies that allow you designate any one person, regardless of gender or sexual relationship, as your partner or beneficiary. Alaska Airlines allows you to name one person, in addition to your parents and children, to receive travel benefits. They don’t ask whether you live together, have sex, or swap spit. They just need a name and social security number.
What’s wrong with a) a simple affidavit saying you and your domestic partner are, well, partners and b) putting a time limit on how long you can go before you are allowed to designate somebody else? Companies shouldn’t be asking about domestic partners’ checking accounts or sex lives any more than they should be asking about mine. Has anyone EVER had an employer require proof of marriage?
Mythago - I don’t really disagree with you here at all. The fact that companies do require all this “proof” of partnership for DPs but not married people (with the exception that Space Chick mentioned) is something that has rankled me for years.
I guess my original point is that it is possible to use language in the affadavit that doesn’t mention sex, yet still suggests that one is in a long-term, permanent relationship. It doesn’t have to be “you must have sex” on one side, or “any other person you want” on the other — there is a middle ground.
I think Gonz’s notes point out who is getting hammered by our ludicrous health care system: small business. (My dad was also a small businessman). There is no incentive financially to treat your employees well, you do it because it’s the right thing. And you get hammered. But it’ s only when the big companies (GM, United, etc) start really yelling that MAYBE those boneheads in Washington will do something.
The issue re. partner benefits: fortunately Ii work at a big place that has them, if we need them. Tho’ since we aren’t married, they are still taxable (and their value is such that that’s quite an issue).
The contortions we have to go to to prove we are a legitimate couple is crazy. Just let us marry why don’t they, and that will all be unnecessary. Gonz and his fellow employers who provide family benefits won’t be particularly affected (there aren’t THAT many gays who will marry). Such benefits remain a perk of a committed relationship which is good for society and good for the employer (stable employees stay focused, rather than catting around at night!) I don’t agree with providing benefits to roommates, for the reasons Gonz points out, and because I think there is a legitimate state and employer interest in promoting stable long term relationships. I just don’t think they should be limited to heterosexuals.
After all, as a step parent, I have kids too!
IT,
Employers should promote stable long term relationships… great idea! I can’t wait for an employer to introduce me to my bashert! In the mean time, I’d appreciate it if my work were both judged and renumerated on its merits and not on my love/sex life.
It’s not the providing benefits that bothers me, it’s the mandating of it. It isn’t a question of who is on it, it’s that I will go from 11 married employees with spouse benefits, 1 of whom has opted out of insurance altogether, and one of which just covers herself, to up to how nine more.
You get a mandate for it, and it will be only the big corporations who will be able to afford it.
That makes for a world full of Wal-Marts. Without the low prices.
Why should the big companies yell? The fact that small companies are hammered by health insurance keeps the competition down.
And let’s not bring “Da Gubbmint” into. My area got annexed two years ago, and I’m paying for trash, fire, and sewer service which I still don’t recieve, and have to pay for again from elsewhere - Hell, I’m paying the township for fire to boot, and I still have to pay dues to the VFD. The sheriff and Mssrs. Glock, Smith, and Wesson are still my security, and I pay for the city PD in my taxes, plus both county and city schools - which I have no kids in either. Sidewalk taxes where I have no sidewalks. A signage fee for a sign I had up for years with one, smaller, fee which I now have to renew every six months with my property taxes - which went through the roof. It goes on. My experience with the efficiency, timeliness, and responsiveness of government is at zero - and I am located in a “blue” county, so it isn’t the Republican Branch of the Republicrat parties that is screwing the pooch here, either.
It’s not the providing benefits that bothers me, it’s the mandating of it. It isn’t a question of who is on it, it’s that I will go from 11 married employees with spouse benefits, 1 of whom has opted out of insurance altogether, and one of which just covers herself, to up to how nine more.
Where did “mandate” come into this discussion? I thought this discussion was about some very silly wording in the affadavits that the University of Flordia requires, and the idea that perhaps companies could consider extending benefits beyond romantic partners. If one of the comments suggested that this should be MANDATED by law, I must have missed that.
I take it from your post that you have nine employees who are not married and thus you do not need to pay for their spouses. What would happen to your business if those remaining 9 employees all got married tomorrow? Would you deny benefits to the 9 new spouses? Would you insist that someone else divorce? Would you take away benefits from everyone?
Regarding the fear that every single person in your organization would leap at the chance to cover another person, this is just not so. There are (as IT pointed out) some significant tax disadvantages to covering a non-spouse on one’s work health plan. In the case of DP benefits specifically enacted to provide for same-sex partners, in many cases very few people actually sign up once they compare costs.
DP benefits have been a godsend for me because my partner has been unemployed/underemployed for significant portions of our relationship. But if she were to get a stable job that provided decent benefits on its own, you can bet that we’d drop her from my insurance in a heartbeat…the benefits are nice, but not exactly cheap.
This could be discriminatory for long-term couples who have had sex in teh past but no longer do so, eg, disability of one partner. Not uncommon, either for het married folk or for DPs.
Where did “mandate” come into this discussion? I thought this discussion was about some very silly wording in the affadavits that the University of Flordia requires, and the idea that perhaps companies could consider extending benefits beyond romantic partners. If one of the comments suggested that this should be MANDATED by law, I must have missed that.
When words like “disrimination” - harbingers of the lawsuit - are bandied about, you can be sure that mandates are not far behind; if not legislative ones, court imposed ones. It’s not hard to know the train is coming if you hear the horn, you don’t have to actually see it.
I take it from your post that you have nine employees who are not married and thus you do not need to pay for their spouses. What would happen to your business if those remaining 9 employees all got married tomorrow?
What would happen if my warehouse suddenly collapsed into a quantum singularity? I’d be in a world of financial hurt.
Would you deny benefits to the 9 new spouses?
It would be illegal to do so.
Would you insist that someone else divorce?
Hyperbole much?
Would you take away benefits from everyone?
It would be illegal to do so. What I would have to do is lay people off, and increase workloads, and restructure the benefit system for the next fiscal year.
Regarding the fear that every single person in your organization would leap at the chance to cover another person, this is just not so.
Straw man. What the real fear is that in the long term it would pan out to be so. Actual, more of the “middle term.” I’m final tweaking my 2006 business plan, compiling my 2007 plan, and laying groundwork for 2008. This would be a heavy factor in all of them which would change them radically. Three years from now, I’ll probably have at most two of the entry level techs still with me - the others will have moved on because they have more experience and I have no place to promote them. Those new people incoming are those I would have to worry about.
Or are you suggesting that I should ask them if they plan to put someone on before I hire them?
There are (as IT pointed out) some significant tax disadvantages to covering a non-spouse on one’s work health plan. In the case of DP benefits specifically enacted to provide for same-sex partners, in many cases very few people actually sign up once they compare costs.
Depends on where they work. My unmarried employees are by and large young and just starting out, with girlfriends working retail, without benefits.
DP benefits have been a godsend for me because my partner has been unemployed/underemployed for significant portions of our relationship. But if she were to get a stable job that provided decent benefits on its own, you can bet that we’d drop her from my insurance in a heartbeat…the benefits are nice, but not exactly cheap.
The operative word being “if.”
OK, Gonzman, I’ve no idea what your point is, or why you seem so hostile. You seem to have completely missed my entire point. I really don’t care what benefits you offer your nine employees. I am just puzzled by the idea of offering benefits to spouses, but not being prepared for employees to actually take advantage of those benefits.
Please direct me to resources stating that legislation or lawsuits to MANDATE DP benefits is in the works.
One last story - before my company was bought last year, we were a very small company. Not as small as yours, but small. And somehow my company was well-managed enough to pay for domestic partner benefits, treat employees well, AND make a profit. Not a shabby amount of profit, either.
Most companies that have instituted DP benefits have not gone bankrupt.
And I really don’t get your last line. You seem to be taking a swipe at my partner’s ability to get a job, which is a rather nasty thing to do. Either that, or you’re somehow implying that I should feel guilty for having her on my insurance for the time being. Or something. So much for having an interesting discussion here.
You’re a fine one to get on your high horse and talk about a hostile tone when you start out by making flippant and snotty questions at me.
Apparently you do care, or you wouldn’t enter into a discussion.
FYI, benefits are offered by most companies after a cost analysis that predicts how many will take advantage, to what level, and what the financial impact is. Change the variables, the impact changes. It’s really pretty elementary.
Please direct me to resources stating that legislation or lawsuits to MANDATE DP benefits is in the works.
First “nobody said” and now you want offisite things? Look up. Reference discrimination, and the allusions to it. It’s called the spirit of the conversation, inference, all manner of things. It’s a useful skill to have, even more useful than deliberate obtuseness.
Yes, many small companies offer partner benefits. Are they service or goods oriented? Manufacturing, reassembly, VAR - what? These all have impacts on the final profit margin. Obviously, the points I have are low, but I make it up in volume. I have to. I also compete with IBM and their ilk.
Most companies that have instituted DP benefits have not gone bankrupt.
But some have.
And I really don’t get your last line. You seem to be taking a swipe at my partner’s ability to get a job, which is a rather nasty thing to do.
No, ma’am, but I will concede it is probably easy for me to give offense to someone with a chip on their shoulder who is looking to take offense. Most jobs are entry level, and it is not a leap of intuitive thought or inductive reasoning to conclude that your partner’s un/under-employment is probably due to a short list of experience. (Experienced people generally getting stable, full-time, above entry level positions)
It’s really not that hard when you’re not looking to play the “Meany!” card.
Either that, or you’re somehow implying that I should feel guilty for having her on my insurance for the time being. Or something.
That’s your inference, and your attitude, and your problem. A further point is that even if stable employment with benefits results, it won’t necessarily be more cost effective for her to get her own. Or it may be inferior.
Coure, like I said, you tend to miss such subtleties when you are looking for offense.
So much for having an interesting discussion here.
Yeah, you shot that in the foot.
OK, I apologize for the tone of my last post. Really. I did not intend to start out “snotty” in the first one, and I should not have overreacted in the second. My bad and I apologize.
Can we start over? I admit DP benfits are a sensitive topic for me, because they have kept my family out of financial ruin. So I have a tendency to leap to their defense. Make sense?
I was honestly curious about how one handles offering benefits that may vary in how much they cost based entirely on factors outside the business’s control (i.e., marriages, births, etc.). This was what prompted the question about your 9 unmarried employees.
You answered that here:
benefits are offered by most companies after a cost analysis that predicts how many will take advantage, to what level, and what the financial impact is. Change the variables, the impact changes. It’s really pretty elementary.
This idea is, sort of, what I was originally trying to get at regarding how many people would actually sign up their DPs for benefits. From what I have read, at least several years ago when I researched this topic for my company, not many employees DO sign up for DP benefits. Or rather, if the benefits are offered exclusively for same-sex partners, very few sign up (I would have to look it up to be sure, but the number 1-3% of the gay employees sticks out in my mind).
If they are also extended to unmarried heterosexual partners, you get a larger percentage, but still not nearly as many as you could have. I was originally trying to suggest that if you further extended this, as Hugo suggests, to include ANY additional person, then you would still probably not get 100%. Obviously this is just a guess on my part, but when you already have people who COULD sign up today and don’t, it suggests to me that this would continue to happen.
The other disincentive to signing up for these benefits are the tax implications I mentioned earlier, which can be substantial.
I guess I should note in here that I’m not really endorsing Hugo’s idea — I was primarily reacting (negatively) to the idea that individuals who cannot sign up a significant other for benefits, either because they don’t have one or the type that they do have does not qualify, end up subsidizing the system for the people who can include their family members.
Finally, we’ll just have to disagree on the mandate thing. I find it highly unlikely that any law or court ruling would mandate coverage for domestic partners, especially since, as you point out, many companies don’t offer any coverage at all. And it seems even less likely (to me, this is just my opinion) that any law would ever require coverage of just anyone the employee chose.
OK, I apologize for the tone of my last post. Really. I did not intend to start out “snotty” in the first one, and I should not have overreacted in the second. My bad and I apologize.
Allright, I’m jiggy wid’ it. I’m not one to bandy words or temper bluntnessand my brevity often comes across as being curt and rude, so we’re even.
If they are also extended to unmarried heterosexual partners, you get a larger percentage, but still not nearly as many as you could have. I was originally trying to suggest that if you further extended this, as Hugo suggests, to include ANY additional person, then you would still probably not get 100%. Obviously this is just a guess on my part, but when you already have people who COULD sign up today and don’t, it suggests to me that this would continue to happen.
It’s the “could happen” that is the sticker - it has to be factored in, you always have to account for the worst-case scenario. Playing with averages and other numbers is fine with a large enough cross section. The smaller your sampling, the less they apply.
My sampling is twenty. Even three such employees choosing such an option costs over 10 grand. That makes me start eating Rolaids like M&Ms. Seriously; this is my livelihood I am talking about. That’s one seventh of what I pay me, before taxes. Subtract 1/7 of your check even after taxes and see where you stand.
The other disincentive to signing up for these benefits are the tax implications I mentioned earlier, which can be substantial.
There is a lot of ifs on this, though. If one doesn’t make enough to pay taxes - or at least gets a substantial refund, the disincentive is pretty much non-existant
I guess I should note in here that I’m not really endorsing Hugo’s idea — I was primarily reacting (negatively) to the idea that individuals who cannot sign up a significant other for benefits, either because they don’t have one or the type that they do have does not qualify, end up subsidizing the system for the people who can include their family members.
We as a society have chosen to make family concerns a compelling state interest.
Finally, we’ll just have to disagree on the mandate thing. I find it highly unlikely that any law or court ruling would mandate coverage for domestic partners, especially since, as you point out, many companies don’t offer any coverage at all. And it seems even less likely (to me, this is just my opinion) that any law would ever require coverage of just anyone the employee chose.
In California not too long ago, they forced a Catholic social service to extend coverage to Birth Control, which is against the teachings of a private religious based group. Acn you seriously say then that no court would ever say “If you offer it, you must offer it across the board?”
They forced a Catholic social service to extend coverage to Birth Control, which is against the teachings of a private religious based group
Gonzman, that’s not quite what happened in the Catholic Charities case. Catholic Charities is not the Catholic church. You had two competing issues there–a Catholic organization not wanting to promote what it considers to be a sin vs. a group that *isn’t* a church saying “The laws that apply to all other employers don’t apply to us.”
That said, of course a law could order companies that grant coverage to marrieds to grant it to domestic partners. Especially in states, like California, which have official DP registries.
That’s a “What the definition of “is” is” type of statement, Myth. But, that’s neither here nor there. CATHOLIC Charities is religious. Anything else is nitpicky word-parsing.
That aside, though, thanks for making my point, that courts could indeed impose such a requirement on anyone - while the court from another state might not oblige me, and apellate court’s ruling would. If they are going to micromanage what kind of coverage will be offered, it’s a much deeper intrusion into liberty as to who it will be offered to.
“But I’m inclined to think that the problem lies in our enduring cultural belief that sex is needed to legitimize the most important relationships of our lives.”
I’ll agree with that. I HATE the word “consummate” with regard to sex because it suggests that your relationship or marriage isn’t fully complete until you copulate. Your marriage is complete, official, and consummated when you sign the papers and declare your love for each other in front of your friends and family at the ceremony, no matter what you may or may not do that evening in the honeymoon suite.
Okay, I’m with Gonz, Mr. Bad, and bmmg39. We are the four horsemen indeed.
That said, of course a law could order companies that grant coverage to marrieds to grant it to domestic partners. Especially in states, like California, which have official DP registries.
OK, I concede this point. It could be mandated. I never really thought this was “impossible” - just highly unlikely.
This is a good illustration of differing perspectives from different regions. While I’ll grant that such a law might pass in California, I currently live in Montana, where any proposed legislation that has the slightest whiff of something that could benefit gays can’t even make it out of committee, let alone be voted on and passed. Heck, the legislature here won’t take Montana’s sodomy law off the books, even though it is utterly unenforcable and violates the strong privacy clauses within the MT constitution (not to mention Lawrence v. Texas).
That said, of course a law could order companies that grant coverage to marrieds to grant it to domestic partners.
Ah, our big buddy, THE LAW! What if I run a company and refuse to comply? Then what? Will jackbooted thugs break down my door and haul me away in chains to the American gulag?
Do feminists have some vested interest in the prison-industrial complex that they want more laws, more people in jail? Perhaps NOW invests in prison stocks?
And why do feminists only think in terms of force, ordering people to do things? I thought feminists believed in persuasion?
I keep asking this question of feminists and never can get a straight answer out of them.
As for Catholic Charities, what if they engaged in civil disobedience and refused to comply with THE LAW? Would feminists advocate putting them in jail?