28 thoughts on “I wonder how they’re going to police this?”
Amazing. Just what values are they promoting?
Geoff, I actually think that this isn’t that bad a regulation. I think the idea is that UF doesn’t want to discriminate against homosexual couples that are forbidden to marry, but doesn’t want to open themselves up to charges of discrimination by heterosexual couples that aren’t legally married. At the same time, UF has an obvious interest in doing something to limit the benefits to couples that are legitimately together. This strikes me as a rational compromise, given that most couples that have been together for twelve months nowadays are either getting married or already having sex.
I can see opposing this on the grounds that one wouldn’t want to extend the benefits to non-married people, but this seems like a good compromise. Besides, the reasoning behind UF’s regulation is clearly to limit the benefits to people in a relationship. I see no moral problem with claiming to be having sex with your longtime girlfriend/boyfriend if you’re actually in a real relationship and have chosen to be celibate, seeing as you’re still targeted by the spirit of the plan. It sounds bad, but this is a pretty good idea.
Interesting that you bring this up because I’m on my university’s health insurance committee as a representative of graduate students and I have kind of been assigned to convince the committee that heterosexual domestic partners of students should be allowed to participate in the university health plan. I’ve wondered how you would protect against abuse by platonic roommates. The people I’ve spoken with about this issue think it probably doesn’t matter to either the University or the insurance company as long as the people that would buy into the plan aren’t, on average, higher risk than the average student. The insurance company loves to insure healthy people–the more the better.
I’m beginning to think, though, that the people who would be most motivated to abuse the system would be high risk, high cost insurees. I’ll find out next week what the committee and the insurance company think about the issue.
D-Train, of course, there is an easy solution, which is to only provide benefits to married couples as they are defined by the state of Florida. But that would be way too retro.
Tom, in all of the insurance plans I have participated in, couples usually do not pay two times what they would pay as individuals. Individual health insurance may be, for example, $500 per month, but couples’ insurance might be $800 per month. So, there is a large incentive ($200 per month) for roommates to pretend to be partners so they pay less money for insurance. That may not be the case at your university, but it is certainly the case for every private insurer I have heard of.
Wouldn’t that be nice, Geoff. In our student health plan spouse benefits cost almost twice as much as student benefits. This committee that I’m now on has made some very dumb (in my opinion) decisions. That’s why I decided to get on the committee when the opportunity arose. I’m trying to be a voice of reason among this crazy lot.
Geoff,
I guess the point that I would make is that I’m not sure why you’re ticked off about this. UF is simply offering more incentives to certain employees. Straight people are in no way inconvenienced by this, and indeed stand to benefit from the increase. One can question the wisdom of UF’s decision to spend more on health care, but that’s their call as an institution. Offering life partner insurance would be a significant draw for many outstanding faculty, but I cannot say for sure if that would make a big difference in the quality of UF faculty. What I can say is that nobody loses here except for those that bear the increased cost of UF insurance, which doesn’t seem to be the source of your complaint.
Eric, “Just what values are they promoting?”
Honesty perhaps?
At the university I went to there was a student health insurance plan. The premium for a single student was 70 dollars. For a married couple(no kids) it was 400 dollars. It was disgusting.
Why not say that you either have to have a marriage certificate or prove that you have been in a relationship for at least 12 months by showing you have a combined bank account, or are both making payments on a car or insurance payments, or bought life insurance on each other, etc? Anything that shows that you are more committed to each other than roommates (i.e., more than shared utility or rent payments).
D-Train, I hesitate to respond to you because everybody in the Bloggernacle is tired of the SSM debate. It seems these discussions are always the same.
I am not “ticked off about this.” I try not to get ticked off about anything. But it would be correct for you to say I am “worried” or “concerned” about this.
Let’s just say I support the Church’s position on same-gender marriage, which has been spelled out in no uncertain terms here.
Inasmuch as UF’s policy supports benefits for same-gender couples, I oppose it. My position would be that UF should only offer benefits to men and women who are legally married.
One further point: SSM proponents, especially in the bloggernacle, are quick to deny that any people, including roommates, will take advantage of the situations such as these to live together pretending to be couples. My position from a purely practical standpoint is that offering benefits to people who are not married to each other brings up serious problems of enforcement. College kids can do crazy things (such as pretending to be a couple so they get benefits). It’s certainly the type of things my friends in college would have done more than 20 years ago, and the world has changed radically even since then, so I’m sure it would happen today. UF appears concerned enough about it to make sure that people say they are having sex before they can get benefits.
Insurance, like any good or service, works by the principle of supply and demand. This is why insurance fraud is not a good thing because (besides being dishonest) it drives up the cost of insurance for the rest of us. So, if two roommates are fraudulently claiming benefits, this means they are paying less than they would separately. This means that the insurance company has to make up the difference someplace else, by raising rates for other people. Multiply this by potentially millions of students at thousands of universities and millions of employees and thousands of companies and, yes, you have a problem for society.
To those (like me) whose mantra has been “Keep the government out of my bedroom,” this can only be regarded as bad news. I think enochville is on the right track with his suggestion that evidence of an extended financial interdependence would be more appropriate.
I think the problem is under the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment you can’t descriminate against protected classes. If we apply this protection to same-sex couples how can we not apply the same protection to a-sexual couples. Men or women who aren’t haveing sex for whatever reason is arguably another orientation and cannot be denied under the same theory that same-sex couples would prevail under.
Dr. Laura had this very dilemma on her show and was vilified for it. She read a letter from a woman who indicated that she are her partner were women who loved each other and were committed to each other for the rest of their lives. Infact one of the women had agreed to stay home with the prior womans children, from a previous relationship (obviously), while the other woman would work.
Her employer denied benefits (health and others)to this womans partner though they were similarly situated to others who received benefits. These two women were mother and daughter and therefore unable to receive the same benefits given to others who arguably had less of a connection.
How can you deny benefits to similarly situated couples when you are arguing that benefits should be expanded outside the traditional circle of married couples? You want to draw the line just big enough to get your group in, but no others. Is the Equal Protection?
I’m not trying to rehash the SSM debate, but some of the comments above do not appear to be aware of a central issue in this debate.
College kids can do crazy things (such as pretending to be a couple so they get benefits).
Here is a case in point. This is a news story of a girl who legally married someone so she could break her dormitory housing contract without having to pay so she could keep her cat.
I think that its in society’s best interest to only offer these types of benefits to heterosexual married couples.
Why should the U.F. (or any other employeer) be in the business of supplying insurance? (Yes I vaguely know the history of offering insurance to employees to get around taxes, but why do we still have that burden today?)
Why doesn’t U.F. simply stop all insurance and up the salaries by whatever margin they were contributing to the insurance? Tom, why not suggest this?
“I think that its in society’s best interest to only offer these types of benefits to heterosexual married couples. “
Why? I’m completely on-board with the Church’s teachings against SSM, but until we stop providing health benefits to rapists and murderers, I’m very uncomfortable singling out other, lesser sins as the basis of denying health insurance (that’s what pre-existing conditions are for 😉 ).
Geoff,
I am likewise sick of the SSM issue. Reasonable people can disagree. What puzzles me is that, as Andermom notes, people can use marriage to scam the system. This does seem to make it easier, but it’s up to insurance companies to offer that service or to refuse to do so. They know when they offer same-sex or LTR benefits that it will cost them more to provide service. It’s only if your company allows for this that you bear any cost at all, and even that depends on how they structure the plan.
I agree that your position is reasonable and I am much more passionate about other health issues (for example, mental health parity) than about this. I don’t see marriage-only health care benefits as inherently discriminatory, given the fraud issues. But then, why does the gay issue surface? Why can’t we just leave it at “too much potential for abuse”?
The answer, of course, is that it always seems to come down to “well, there’s a lot of potential for abuse, but they ARE gay, and we know what the Church has said……” I’m really not OK with that argument. Also, even if we assume that SSM is an abomination, I’m not convinced as to why people that aren’t parties to UF’s health care system should fight the inclusion of same-sex couples on moral grounds. And, not to bring up the SSM battle again, but legal civil unions would make the fraud problem as nonexistent as it is with marriage.
Ed (#15): “Why doesn’t U.F. simply stop all insurance and up the salaries by whatever margin they were contributing to the insurance? Tom, why not suggest this?”
Well, in conversations with the deans and other administrators the reason they give for subsidizing the health care of students is that since the university requires that students have coverage, the University has an obligation to provide an affordable option. If the university didn’t organize and buy into a group plan students would have to find a provider on their own, which would cost each student much more than the $1,244 that the university pays for grad students (the university provides $0 for spouses and dependents, and has recently restructured premiums in a very family-unfriendly way so that the average student with a family would have to spend about 25% of their stipend on premiums alone). Also, a big reason universities (and employers in general) are compelled to provide health care benefits is so that they can remain competitive with peer institutions.
In my case, opening the student plan to heterosexual domestic partners costs the university nothing, since the university doesn’t provide any benefit for dependents of students. It would end up costing students in future higher premiums only if the people that bought into the plan were higher risk than the average student. Ultimately it’s a question of fairness. If homosexual domestic partners can participate in the plan, heterosexuals should be able to as well.
Why should the U.F. (or any other employeer) be in the business of supplying insurance? (Yes I vaguely know the history of offering insurance to employees to get around taxes, but why do we still have that burden today?)
Given that the tax advantage of employer-provided health insurance still exists, it is unrealistic to expect an employer to put itself at a competitive disadvantage by offering taxable wages in their place. The President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform recommended that tax-free benefits be delinked from the employer and limited to the average premium. If employers offered plans with above-average premiums, the difference would be taxable income to the employee. On the other hand, if employers offered no plan or one with below average premiums, individuals could purchase their own policies with pre-tax dollars to make up the difference. It would be a start, but it is unlikely to get serious consideration in Congress.
I don’t have a problem with civil unions. If society wants to allow for contractual relationships between people other than married couples I don’t have a problem with that. However, if we go that route, I don’t see any reason why roomates cannot have the same benefits. If an individual by virtue of his/her employment or attendance at a university earns the benefit of sharing a benefit with a partner, who are we to decide who that partner may be? Why doesn’t the roomate deserve the same benefit he can covey to his best friend? Because they DON’T sleep together? Now we will discriminate against the unmarried or unattached? The mother and daughter living together where the mother stays at home to watch her daughters kids needs the same benefits any other couple needs.
[I was surprised no one responded to the letter from Dr. Laura in #12].
People seem to forget the reason for these benefits originally is because the family is the central unit in society and marriage benefits were necessary to encourage and assist families. Today it is extremely difficult for a family to exist unless the parents are wealthy or poor. The middle class can’t afford to have more than their alloted 2 kids.
Oh and no one addresses the marriage penalty with regard to insurance. If a young man and woman gets pregnant they have to stay single to keep insurance through their parents. If the do the “right thing” and get married they lose their insurance and have to pay for the cost of the pregnancy.
If you’re under 24, have at least one living parent, and are a university student, it behooves you to find someone who will agree to marry you for the sake of becoming “independent” in the eyes of financial aid offices and the federal government. The health insurance benefit would be like the icing on that cake; I find it hard to imagine that there are any platonic roommates who’d be willing to declare themselves “partners” on a university form for the health insurance savings, but unwilling to declare themselves “sexually active” on that same form. I mean, come on. This is the age group where upwards of one out of six admits to having cheated in school, over the last 40 years at least.
Geoff B,
I hate to have to point out the obvious, but the church does not have a policy on same-gender health insurance plans. Additionally, there is nothing in the UF policy that “encourages” SSM, especially since a very reasonable argument can be made and this policy is entirely neutral on SSM. Your worry seems to be misplaced.
As for extending benefits to only married couples in order to prevent abuse, well, it seems like a solution to this is staring you in the face.
Trailertrash, D-Train and Julie,
Those of us who have been following these things for some time note the following progression:
1970s: Don’t provide benefits to live-in heterosexual partners because the only people who should get benefits are legally married husbands and wives, and promoting marriage is important for society.
1980s: Don’t provide benefits to live-in homosexual partners because the only people who should get benefits are legally married husbands and wives, and promoting marriage is important for society.
1990s: Don’t support civil union legislation because it promotes the normalization of homosexual relationships and damages traditional marriage, which is important for society.
2000s: Don’t support same-gender marriage because it promotes the normalization of homosexual relationships and damages traditional marriage, which is important for society.
Throughout this process, some people have been incapable of seeing any linkage in these trends as we descend into the increasingly bizarre situation where promoting traditional marriage is seen as “hateful” and “intolerant.”
In the 1980s, people opposing benefits for anybody who was not married were laughed off when they warned it would eventually lead to gay marriage. So, those of us who warn that the next step will be the legalization of polyamory, bestiality and pedophilia are, of course, laughed off now. Let’s check back in 10 years (or sooner) and see who was right. And a question for the SSM supporters: when there is growing support for legalizing polyamory, bestiality and pedophilia in the coming years, will you admit you were wrong to support SSM (and its antecedents) in the first place? Unlikely. You will be building a long list of excuses about how these issues are not interrelated, and we need to be tolerant and non-judgmental (of pedophiles, for example), and blah, blah, blah.
There is a solution, which has consistently been supported by the Church: promote traditional marriage and oppose attempts to destroy traditional marriage. Once you see the antecedents of SSM and how it has come to be generally accepted because of the progression above, you may accept that there is some linkage.
Geoff B-
I don’t think that the slippery slope of health insurance for SS partners will lead to health insurance for bestiality couples ever.
Nor do I think that the slippery slope is an argument against any particular action. It can be argued that the decline in marriage can be traced back to women receiving the right to vote. Do you think that we should reverse that for the sake of preserving marriage? Picking random values from the 1970’s (why not the 1870’s) as examples of the kind of values we should have today is highly questionable. Each action needs to be taken on its own and you have to demonstrate harmful effects of each action, not that it might lead to the legalization of pedophilia. C’mon.
fyi, the “which is important for society” part of your trend is precisely the hugely problematic question which is at stake here. i personally think that health insurance for people is also important for society. And who is the actor deciding this in your “progression” models? It sounds like insurance companies. Frankly, I don’t think it is important for society to have insurance companies decide what is important for society.
As for supporting the church’s current policy about SSM, I repeat, there is nothing in that policy which says that SS couples should be denied health insurance. You’re looking beyond the mark here. Your opposition to such policies as extending insurance benefits is rooted in absolutely no doctrinal or policy position of the church.
Geoff,
It is clear you have strong feelings about these issues. I hope my comments won’t appear to you to be flippant or dismissive. I share many of your same concerns.
That said, I think you make some HUGE leaps in your progression through the decades. The crowing of the rooster didn’t cause the sun to rise, but you are a smart enough guy to know that already. I think that is why you say antecedent and linkage, rather than cause.
The damage that has already been done to the institution of marriage by heterosexual people over the past 4 decades is enormous, and there is very little that gay people can do to devalue it any further. Attempts now to pass laws that strengthen marriage, while quixotic, are almost certain to fail. We are trying to close the barn door after the horse is already 50 miles down the road.
Geoff: “which has consistently been supported by the Church: promote traditional marriage and oppose attempts to destroy traditional marriage.”
Of course, you mean “consistently since 1914” to oppose polyamorous marriage…
Geoff B–
Others have already pointed out the flaws in your argument. I’ll just add: I will not be the kind of person who thinks that any sin a person commits should separate them from health insurance. I think there is too much about caring for the poor, sick, needy, etc. in the canon–without regard for their worthiness–to allow me down that road.
So, Mark IV, let’s just throw in the towel?
Julie in A: I don’t see how denying partner benefits to anybody has anything to do with not “caring for the poor, sick, needy, etc.” If an insurer decides not to allow any pair who call themselves a couple the right to buy coverage jointly, then those two can each buy insurance separately. If it costs more, so what? Nobody has a right to health insurance, and companies that write health insurance policies are in the business of making money.
Amazing. Just what values are they promoting?
Geoff, I actually think that this isn’t that bad a regulation. I think the idea is that UF doesn’t want to discriminate against homosexual couples that are forbidden to marry, but doesn’t want to open themselves up to charges of discrimination by heterosexual couples that aren’t legally married. At the same time, UF has an obvious interest in doing something to limit the benefits to couples that are legitimately together. This strikes me as a rational compromise, given that most couples that have been together for twelve months nowadays are either getting married or already having sex.
I can see opposing this on the grounds that one wouldn’t want to extend the benefits to non-married people, but this seems like a good compromise. Besides, the reasoning behind UF’s regulation is clearly to limit the benefits to people in a relationship. I see no moral problem with claiming to be having sex with your longtime girlfriend/boyfriend if you’re actually in a real relationship and have chosen to be celibate, seeing as you’re still targeted by the spirit of the plan. It sounds bad, but this is a pretty good idea.
Interesting that you bring this up because I’m on my university’s health insurance committee as a representative of graduate students and I have kind of been assigned to convince the committee that heterosexual domestic partners of students should be allowed to participate in the university health plan. I’ve wondered how you would protect against abuse by platonic roommates. The people I’ve spoken with about this issue think it probably doesn’t matter to either the University or the insurance company as long as the people that would buy into the plan aren’t, on average, higher risk than the average student. The insurance company loves to insure healthy people–the more the better.
I’m beginning to think, though, that the people who would be most motivated to abuse the system would be high risk, high cost insurees. I’ll find out next week what the committee and the insurance company think about the issue.
D-Train, of course, there is an easy solution, which is to only provide benefits to married couples as they are defined by the state of Florida. But that would be way too retro.
Tom, in all of the insurance plans I have participated in, couples usually do not pay two times what they would pay as individuals. Individual health insurance may be, for example, $500 per month, but couples’ insurance might be $800 per month. So, there is a large incentive ($200 per month) for roommates to pretend to be partners so they pay less money for insurance. That may not be the case at your university, but it is certainly the case for every private insurer I have heard of.
Wouldn’t that be nice, Geoff. In our student health plan spouse benefits cost almost twice as much as student benefits. This committee that I’m now on has made some very dumb (in my opinion) decisions. That’s why I decided to get on the committee when the opportunity arose. I’m trying to be a voice of reason among this crazy lot.
Geoff,
I guess the point that I would make is that I’m not sure why you’re ticked off about this. UF is simply offering more incentives to certain employees. Straight people are in no way inconvenienced by this, and indeed stand to benefit from the increase. One can question the wisdom of UF’s decision to spend more on health care, but that’s their call as an institution. Offering life partner insurance would be a significant draw for many outstanding faculty, but I cannot say for sure if that would make a big difference in the quality of UF faculty. What I can say is that nobody loses here except for those that bear the increased cost of UF insurance, which doesn’t seem to be the source of your complaint.
Eric, “Just what values are they promoting?”
Honesty perhaps?
At the university I went to there was a student health insurance plan. The premium for a single student was 70 dollars. For a married couple(no kids) it was 400 dollars. It was disgusting.
Why not say that you either have to have a marriage certificate or prove that you have been in a relationship for at least 12 months by showing you have a combined bank account, or are both making payments on a car or insurance payments, or bought life insurance on each other, etc? Anything that shows that you are more committed to each other than roommates (i.e., more than shared utility or rent payments).
D-Train, I hesitate to respond to you because everybody in the Bloggernacle is tired of the SSM debate. It seems these discussions are always the same.
I am not “ticked off about this.” I try not to get ticked off about anything. But it would be correct for you to say I am “worried” or “concerned” about this.
Let’s just say I support the Church’s position on same-gender marriage, which has been spelled out in no uncertain terms here.
Inasmuch as UF’s policy supports benefits for same-gender couples, I oppose it. My position would be that UF should only offer benefits to men and women who are legally married.
One further point: SSM proponents, especially in the bloggernacle, are quick to deny that any people, including roommates, will take advantage of the situations such as these to live together pretending to be couples. My position from a purely practical standpoint is that offering benefits to people who are not married to each other brings up serious problems of enforcement. College kids can do crazy things (such as pretending to be a couple so they get benefits). It’s certainly the type of things my friends in college would have done more than 20 years ago, and the world has changed radically even since then, so I’m sure it would happen today. UF appears concerned enough about it to make sure that people say they are having sex before they can get benefits.
Insurance, like any good or service, works by the principle of supply and demand. This is why insurance fraud is not a good thing because (besides being dishonest) it drives up the cost of insurance for the rest of us. So, if two roommates are fraudulently claiming benefits, this means they are paying less than they would separately. This means that the insurance company has to make up the difference someplace else, by raising rates for other people. Multiply this by potentially millions of students at thousands of universities and millions of employees and thousands of companies and, yes, you have a problem for society.
To those (like me) whose mantra has been “Keep the government out of my bedroom,” this can only be regarded as bad news. I think enochville is on the right track with his suggestion that evidence of an extended financial interdependence would be more appropriate.
I think the problem is under the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment you can’t descriminate against protected classes. If we apply this protection to same-sex couples how can we not apply the same protection to a-sexual couples. Men or women who aren’t haveing sex for whatever reason is arguably another orientation and cannot be denied under the same theory that same-sex couples would prevail under.
Dr. Laura had this very dilemma on her show and was vilified for it. She read a letter from a woman who indicated that she are her partner were women who loved each other and were committed to each other for the rest of their lives. Infact one of the women had agreed to stay home with the prior womans children, from a previous relationship (obviously), while the other woman would work.
Her employer denied benefits (health and others)to this womans partner though they were similarly situated to others who received benefits. These two women were mother and daughter and therefore unable to receive the same benefits given to others who arguably had less of a connection.
How can you deny benefits to similarly situated couples when you are arguing that benefits should be expanded outside the traditional circle of married couples? You want to draw the line just big enough to get your group in, but no others. Is the Equal Protection?
I’m not trying to rehash the SSM debate, but some of the comments above do not appear to be aware of a central issue in this debate.
Here is a case in point. This is a news story of a girl who legally married someone so she could break her dormitory housing contract without having to pay so she could keep her cat.
I think that its in society’s best interest to only offer these types of benefits to heterosexual married couples.
Why should the U.F. (or any other employeer) be in the business of supplying insurance? (Yes I vaguely know the history of offering insurance to employees to get around taxes, but why do we still have that burden today?)
Why doesn’t U.F. simply stop all insurance and up the salaries by whatever margin they were contributing to the insurance? Tom, why not suggest this?
“I think that its in society’s best interest to only offer these types of benefits to heterosexual married couples. “
Why? I’m completely on-board with the Church’s teachings against SSM, but until we stop providing health benefits to rapists and murderers, I’m very uncomfortable singling out other, lesser sins as the basis of denying health insurance (that’s what pre-existing conditions are for 😉 ).
Geoff,
I am likewise sick of the SSM issue. Reasonable people can disagree. What puzzles me is that, as Andermom notes, people can use marriage to scam the system. This does seem to make it easier, but it’s up to insurance companies to offer that service or to refuse to do so. They know when they offer same-sex or LTR benefits that it will cost them more to provide service. It’s only if your company allows for this that you bear any cost at all, and even that depends on how they structure the plan.
I agree that your position is reasonable and I am much more passionate about other health issues (for example, mental health parity) than about this. I don’t see marriage-only health care benefits as inherently discriminatory, given the fraud issues. But then, why does the gay issue surface? Why can’t we just leave it at “too much potential for abuse”?
The answer, of course, is that it always seems to come down to “well, there’s a lot of potential for abuse, but they ARE gay, and we know what the Church has said……” I’m really not OK with that argument. Also, even if we assume that SSM is an abomination, I’m not convinced as to why people that aren’t parties to UF’s health care system should fight the inclusion of same-sex couples on moral grounds. And, not to bring up the SSM battle again, but legal civil unions would make the fraud problem as nonexistent as it is with marriage.
Ed (#15): “Why doesn’t U.F. simply stop all insurance and up the salaries by whatever margin they were contributing to the insurance? Tom, why not suggest this?”
Well, in conversations with the deans and other administrators the reason they give for subsidizing the health care of students is that since the university requires that students have coverage, the University has an obligation to provide an affordable option. If the university didn’t organize and buy into a group plan students would have to find a provider on their own, which would cost each student much more than the $1,244 that the university pays for grad students (the university provides $0 for spouses and dependents, and has recently restructured premiums in a very family-unfriendly way so that the average student with a family would have to spend about 25% of their stipend on premiums alone). Also, a big reason universities (and employers in general) are compelled to provide health care benefits is so that they can remain competitive with peer institutions.
In my case, opening the student plan to heterosexual domestic partners costs the university nothing, since the university doesn’t provide any benefit for dependents of students. It would end up costing students in future higher premiums only if the people that bought into the plan were higher risk than the average student. Ultimately it’s a question of fairness. If homosexual domestic partners can participate in the plan, heterosexuals should be able to as well.
Why should the U.F. (or any other employeer) be in the business of supplying insurance? (Yes I vaguely know the history of offering insurance to employees to get around taxes, but why do we still have that burden today?)
Given that the tax advantage of employer-provided health insurance still exists, it is unrealistic to expect an employer to put itself at a competitive disadvantage by offering taxable wages in their place. The President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform recommended that tax-free benefits be delinked from the employer and limited to the average premium. If employers offered plans with above-average premiums, the difference would be taxable income to the employee. On the other hand, if employers offered no plan or one with below average premiums, individuals could purchase their own policies with pre-tax dollars to make up the difference. It would be a start, but it is unlikely to get serious consideration in Congress.
I don’t have a problem with civil unions. If society wants to allow for contractual relationships between people other than married couples I don’t have a problem with that. However, if we go that route, I don’t see any reason why roomates cannot have the same benefits. If an individual by virtue of his/her employment or attendance at a university earns the benefit of sharing a benefit with a partner, who are we to decide who that partner may be? Why doesn’t the roomate deserve the same benefit he can covey to his best friend? Because they DON’T sleep together? Now we will discriminate against the unmarried or unattached? The mother and daughter living together where the mother stays at home to watch her daughters kids needs the same benefits any other couple needs.
[I was surprised no one responded to the letter from Dr. Laura in #12].
People seem to forget the reason for these benefits originally is because the family is the central unit in society and marriage benefits were necessary to encourage and assist families. Today it is extremely difficult for a family to exist unless the parents are wealthy or poor. The middle class can’t afford to have more than their alloted 2 kids.
Oh and no one addresses the marriage penalty with regard to insurance. If a young man and woman gets pregnant they have to stay single to keep insurance through their parents. If the do the “right thing” and get married they lose their insurance and have to pay for the cost of the pregnancy.
If you’re under 24, have at least one living parent, and are a university student, it behooves you to find someone who will agree to marry you for the sake of becoming “independent” in the eyes of financial aid offices and the federal government. The health insurance benefit would be like the icing on that cake; I find it hard to imagine that there are any platonic roommates who’d be willing to declare themselves “partners” on a university form for the health insurance savings, but unwilling to declare themselves “sexually active” on that same form. I mean, come on. This is the age group where upwards of one out of six admits to having cheated in school, over the last 40 years at least.
Geoff B,
I hate to have to point out the obvious, but the church does not have a policy on same-gender health insurance plans. Additionally, there is nothing in the UF policy that “encourages” SSM, especially since a very reasonable argument can be made and this policy is entirely neutral on SSM. Your worry seems to be misplaced.
As for extending benefits to only married couples in order to prevent abuse, well, it seems like a solution to this is staring you in the face.
Trailertrash, D-Train and Julie,
Those of us who have been following these things for some time note the following progression:
1970s: Don’t provide benefits to live-in heterosexual partners because the only people who should get benefits are legally married husbands and wives, and promoting marriage is important for society.
1980s: Don’t provide benefits to live-in homosexual partners because the only people who should get benefits are legally married husbands and wives, and promoting marriage is important for society.
1990s: Don’t support civil union legislation because it promotes the normalization of homosexual relationships and damages traditional marriage, which is important for society.
2000s: Don’t support same-gender marriage because it promotes the normalization of homosexual relationships and damages traditional marriage, which is important for society.
Throughout this process, some people have been incapable of seeing any linkage in these trends as we descend into the increasingly bizarre situation where promoting traditional marriage is seen as “hateful” and “intolerant.”
In the 1980s, people opposing benefits for anybody who was not married were laughed off when they warned it would eventually lead to gay marriage. So, those of us who warn that the next step will be the legalization of polyamory, bestiality and pedophilia are, of course, laughed off now. Let’s check back in 10 years (or sooner) and see who was right. And a question for the SSM supporters: when there is growing support for legalizing polyamory, bestiality and pedophilia in the coming years, will you admit you were wrong to support SSM (and its antecedents) in the first place? Unlikely. You will be building a long list of excuses about how these issues are not interrelated, and we need to be tolerant and non-judgmental (of pedophiles, for example), and blah, blah, blah.
There is a solution, which has consistently been supported by the Church: promote traditional marriage and oppose attempts to destroy traditional marriage. Once you see the antecedents of SSM and how it has come to be generally accepted because of the progression above, you may accept that there is some linkage.
Geoff B-
I don’t think that the slippery slope of health insurance for SS partners will lead to health insurance for bestiality couples ever.
Nor do I think that the slippery slope is an argument against any particular action. It can be argued that the decline in marriage can be traced back to women receiving the right to vote. Do you think that we should reverse that for the sake of preserving marriage? Picking random values from the 1970’s (why not the 1870’s) as examples of the kind of values we should have today is highly questionable. Each action needs to be taken on its own and you have to demonstrate harmful effects of each action, not that it might lead to the legalization of pedophilia. C’mon.
fyi, the “which is important for society” part of your trend is precisely the hugely problematic question which is at stake here. i personally think that health insurance for people is also important for society. And who is the actor deciding this in your “progression” models? It sounds like insurance companies. Frankly, I don’t think it is important for society to have insurance companies decide what is important for society.
As for supporting the church’s current policy about SSM, I repeat, there is nothing in that policy which says that SS couples should be denied health insurance. You’re looking beyond the mark here. Your opposition to such policies as extending insurance benefits is rooted in absolutely no doctrinal or policy position of the church.
Geoff,
It is clear you have strong feelings about these issues. I hope my comments won’t appear to you to be flippant or dismissive. I share many of your same concerns.
That said, I think you make some HUGE leaps in your progression through the decades. The crowing of the rooster didn’t cause the sun to rise, but you are a smart enough guy to know that already. I think that is why you say antecedent and linkage, rather than cause.
The damage that has already been done to the institution of marriage by heterosexual people over the past 4 decades is enormous, and there is very little that gay people can do to devalue it any further. Attempts now to pass laws that strengthen marriage, while quixotic, are almost certain to fail. We are trying to close the barn door after the horse is already 50 miles down the road.
Geoff: “which has consistently been supported by the Church: promote traditional marriage and oppose attempts to destroy traditional marriage.”
Of course, you mean “consistently since 1914” to oppose polyamorous marriage…
Geoff B–
Others have already pointed out the flaws in your argument. I’ll just add: I will not be the kind of person who thinks that any sin a person commits should separate them from health insurance. I think there is too much about caring for the poor, sick, needy, etc. in the canon–without regard for their worthiness–to allow me down that road.
So, Mark IV, let’s just throw in the towel?
Julie in A: I don’t see how denying partner benefits to anybody has anything to do with not “caring for the poor, sick, needy, etc.” If an insurer decides not to allow any pair who call themselves a couple the right to buy coverage jointly, then those two can each buy insurance separately. If it costs more, so what? Nobody has a right to health insurance, and companies that write health insurance policies are in the business of making money.