[Massachusetts]

[wispfox]

Got this via email yesterday [July 15th, 2004], and thought posting it here made sense.

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A newspaper reporter is looking for couples who will or might lose their domestic partner benefits now that same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts. Some employers are planning or considering withdrawing health benefits for domestic partners.

This is a great opportunity for an article to educate the public (and employers) that health benefits are a matter of equal pay for equal work. It is not an appropriate role for an employer to force couples to get married or lose their health insurance.

If you fit the description, email me back with a brief description of your situation, and the best phone number to reach you (during the day, if possible). Also, feel free to forward this email to friends or lists where people might fit the description. Babson College and the city of Springfield, MA have both announced definite plans to end their DP benefits, if you know anyone who works for either of those.

Dorian Solot, Executive Director
Alternatives to Marriage Project
P.O. Box 1922, Albany, NY 12201
518.462.5600
dsolot @ unmarried.org
http://www.unmarried.org

Co-Author, Unmarried to Each Other:
The Essential Guide to Living Together as an Unmarried Couple

Comments

[phaedra-lari.livejournal.com]

Speaking in my HR persona, domestic partner coverage can be pretty expensive for employers. If same-sex couples were able to marry, I would understand why some companies would consider ending their domestic partner coverage.

The problem is adverse selection. Adverse selection is the phenomenon in insurance where someone who is likely to heavily utilize the coverage is more likely to get the insurance than someone who doesn't need it. Insurance premium costs are based on averaging out the level of risk and usage of the plan across the number of participants, with the contributions of the many healthy people balancing out the costs of the few who get seriously sick or injured.

Insurance for domestic partners is very expensive for the employee (it doesn't come with the tax breaks that married couples get) but very easy to sign up for by arbitrarily deciding that someone you live with who needs insurance is your domestic partner regardless of how serious the relationship actually is. So, what happens when you take those two factors together is that a disproportionate number of the people who sign up for such coverage have serious health issues and file a lot of claims - while the healthy people don't sign up. This impacts the company's claim history and eventually raises their rates which affects everyone on the plan.

My company currently offers domestic partner coverage, which I am very glad of. But if marriage or formalized civil unions become available to same-sex couples in our state, I wouldn't be suprised if we changed our policy. Of course, with so much legislation up in the air on the issue, I'd be tempted to wait a few years just to make sure no one ended up without coverage in the middle of a plan year because of a law changing back to disallow the same-sex marriages.

Personally, I wish it were just easier to get personal insurance and bypass all this stuff instead of making employers and marriage and the like so critical to getting insurance... but as long as we have our current system, I definitely understand why some MA employers would consider the action you describe.

(hope that wasn't totally boring, but I'm still psyched about actually getting to do all this HR stuff again!)

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

(hope that wasn't totally boring, but I'm still psyched about actually getting to do all this HR stuff again!)

Not at all! Startling and unexpected, yes, but not boring (once I had time to read it). Makes sense, yes...