The topic of providing health insurance benefits to gay or lesbian partners of city employees has been discussed on three blogs that I am aware of. But, all three got bogged down in the side issues of homosexuality and same sex marriage which , have nothing really to do with this particular issue. The issue is: who should be allowed to be included on the employees health insurance.
Eligibility now, and as has always been in the past, is simple: the only people eligible for coverage under the employees health insurance plan is the employees immediate family. That is, wife or husband and children to age 18 or 23 if in college. No aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws or parents because they are indeed family but not immediate family.
Now our esteemed Mayor Holiday is proposing to open this eligibility up to the : “partners” of gay and lesbian employees. Or, more accurately, to non-family individuals. Oh, there is a little clause thrown in that they must demonstrate that they are “committed” and “financially co-dependent”, but that does not address the real issue. No matter how “committed” or how “financially co-dependent” they may be they are still unrelated by the blood relationship of being siblings or by marriage which is the only two criteria that define “ immediate family”.
So what Holiday is proposing is opening the city’s obligation of employee health insurance coverage to a non-family entity, and by extended implication to virtually anyone the employee should wish to designate as a “dependent”. All of the named family members listed above and including friends neighbors and the man down the block! But the real kicker is that Mayor Holiday doesn’t need any city councilmen’s approval because once the budget is passed he can act on this on his own authority as mayor.
This extended coverage is not a novel idea either in the country or in North Carolina. ** “Greensboro would be the second city in the state to establish such a policy, after Durham, but the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro were the first local governments to do so. Durham and Orange counties have also extended benefits to domestic partners. The legality of Chapel Hill and Carrboro's policies have been upheld by a superior court judge in Orange County but the law has not been tested by a court with statewide jurisdiction."
"The policies generally allow employees to add unmarried partners and their children to employer health plans and allow unmarried employees to take sick leave to care for their partner or family members. In the case of Chapel Hill, both same-sex and opposite-sex couples who live together in a relationship of indefinite duration, have an exclusive mutual commitment to each other and can demonstrate financial interdependence qualify for the benefits.”
Mayor holiday did not undertake this mission with out asking some questions and trying to get some clarification from the state for his proposal. His first question concerned the NC law banning co-habitation. It was settled when “a July 20 state court decision declaring North Carolina's 201-year ban on cohabitation to be unconstitutional. Citing a 2003 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Texas sodomy law, State Superior Court Judge Benjamin Alford ruled that Debora Hobbs' constitutional rights were violated when the 911 dispatcher was fired from her job at the Pender County Sheriff's Office because she chose to live with her boyfriend.“
I have no idea what Texas law against sodomy has to do with a man and a woman living together and presumably having sex as normal men and women do. But, apparently SSC Judge Benjamin Alford sees a connection. Go figure. I truly believe that this ruling could successfully be challenged if anyone cared to do so. The fact is in our society today co-habitation without benefit of marriage is accepted so this ruling is not likely to be challenged.
At any rate, Mayor Holiday’s first concern was answered, but he now intends only to extend the coverage to same sex couples since opposite sex couples could get married and comply with the provisions if they want to. Like we all can really see how long that discriminatory stipulation holds. City Hall will erupt like Mount St. Helena! And well it should because once you open the doors and dispense with time honored two definitive aspects of family then you have made any and all relationships equally eligible. Just how many adults and children this will add to the tax payers burden is any body’s guess.
Of course being a careful fellow he did ask the State Attorney Generals office, "Would it be a violation of equal protection under the federal and state constitutions for the city of Greensboro to choose to offer domestic partner health benefits to same sex couples while denying the benefit to unmarried opposite sex couples." They refused to offer any guidance on this subject. But it really doesn’t matter because the outcry when any number of unmarried couples are excluded will be loud and clear.
So now we have breached the only barriers and definitions of family health care coverage to included persons and their children who are not related by blood or by marriage to the employees. There is absolutely nothing to stop the employee from placing anyone at all on his policy. He has merely to pay the premium for them and this would show a financial dependence. And if he continues this obligation of paying the premium for anyone’s insurance this would be all that was legally needed to show a commitment.
Oh ho, you say it is covered with the "live with" clause. What does "live with" really mean? in one space? or could paying as little as $1 a month on the rent and going over for dinner once a monthy qualify as "living with" granny and pops? and why shouldn't an employee be able to add a person he/she is having a long term affair with and their children? I think it is safe to say he/she certainly "sleeps" with the person and could eat in their residence and could pay that $1 per month rent.
What I am saying is that once you shatter the time honored definition of dependent or family relastionship then you open it up to a whole host of new configurations. This anyone is eligible for tax payer subsidized city employee health insurance. Aunts, uncles, cousins, kissin’ cousins, grand parents, parents and in-laws. Also conceiveable as eligible are neighbors, homeless people, orphans, friends and Joe the bartender at the employees favorite watering hole.
This is the real issue here folks! Not the pros and cons of same sex marriage or homosexuality or whether or not people need insurance because of the high cost of medical care, but this opening of a Pandora’s Box of more an higher expenses for the tax payers of Greensboro. I therefore must point out strongly that this is not a decision for Mayor Happy Holiday to make alone and we as tax payers should consider our obligations and just how much city tax burden we want to take on.
As for re-defining "family"; this is a matter for the courts, or more democratically the ballot box. And until "partners" are given the legal definition of family my rights as a tax payer are being violated when I am forced to pay for non-family members insurance. We as residents of Greensboro need to let Mayor Holiday know in no uncertain terms just how we feel about his proposed actions on this matter. Get on the phone to his office, e-mail him, write a letter to the Editor, the churches may want to gather their troops because of the assault on the institution of marriage that some have been concerned about. What ever you do, do something to assert your rights and protect yourself from this latest insanity of a totally out of touch with reality officialdom. BB
Original article;
**Greensboro to move forward on domestic partnership benefits
Jordan Green News editor
http://www.yesweekly.com/ http://www.yesweekly.com/main.asp?Secti ... M=53023.68
