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Gay faculty partners left uninsured |
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Thursday, 01 March 2007 |
Families of homosexual faculty not eligible for North Carolina health insurance
by JULIA MERCHANT
Intern News Reporter
Dr. Monica Pombo is an assistant communication professor at Appalachian State University with tenure. Because of her position, she should be able to take comfort in the benefits she receives as a state employee, such as health insurance coverage for herself and her family.
But
unlike most of her colleagues, Pombo cannot rest assured that the
university will take care of the well being of her family, at least
medically.
This is because Pombo is a lesbian, and because of her sexual
orientation, the fact that she and her partner have been together 19
years and have a son means little in the eyes of the
University of North Carolina system.
“The university looks at the three of us as not related,” Pombo said.
Under the health-care plan used for all state employees in North
Carolina, only the legal spouse and children of an employee may be
offered health insurance coverage.
Additionally, because Pombo’s partner gave birth to their son, Pombo is
not viewed as his legal parent – second-parent adoptions are illegal in
the state of North Carolina.
Pombo’s partner works as a grant-based researcher for the university.
She only has a job until the grant money runs out. After that, unless
she has other employment lined up, she and their son will go without
insurance, even though they have familial connections to a school
employee.
“It drives me crazy … if I think about it, it makes me very nervous,”
Pombo said of the idea that her 9-year-old son may go uninsured for any
period of time.
Kitty McCollum, assistant vice president for Human Resources for the
UNC system, said the North Carolina legislature is in charge of
determining the rules and provisions of the State of North Carolina
Health Care Plan used for all state employees.
This means that for a change to be enacted in the insurance – such as a
provision allowing domestic partners to receive full benefits – the
government of North Carolina would be in charge of the decision-making
process.
However, McCollum said, each individual university is allowed to
“negotiate their own plans at a local level” and decide if they will
extend benefits at some additional cost to the university.
So far, it appears Appalachian has taken little advantage of this exception to the rule.
Student Government Association’s Director of Multicultural Affairs,
senior marketing major Jamie A. Herring, said SGA tried to pass
resolutions for domestic partner benefits several times but nothing has
happened as a result.
Recently, SGA handed the issue over to Appalachian’s Faculty Senate,
citing its belief that the issue was more pertinent to university
faculty and staff.
“People in SGA felt like it wasn’t a student issue,” Herring said.
However, he warns that may be a bit of a misconception, because the
issue of domestic partner benefits is actually “indirectly affecting
students … we could potentially lose qualified professors.
“If faculty members don’t want to or aren’t able to stay [because of
monetary issues related to a lack of benefits], it hurts the quality of
academia at Appalachian,” Herring said.
Herring knows it will be an uphill battle to obtain system-wide health
benefits for the partners and children of gay and lesbian faculty and
staff.
“It would take a big push by the public ... teachers, the department of
social services,” and other parties would have to get involved, he said.
On the faculty side, Appalachian Collection archivist Kathy L. Staley,
a member of the university’s LGBT Task Force, said some faculty are
currently doing research on the potential cost of domestic partner
benefits to the state and looking at other public school systems that
have successfully implemented a domestic partner benefits policy.
However, Staley said while university officials are likely
knowledgeable about this ongoing research, as far as she knows, “no one
from the administration has approached a member of the task force about
this issue.”
Some gains have been made in recent years through the implementation of
“soft” benefits, or benefits related to university services rather than
an insurance policy.
Domestic partners of gay and lesbian faculty at Appalachian are
entitled access to school recreation facilities, the library and
discounts on tickets to university events. However, even these
benefits are not actually written anywhere in the university’s official
policy.
“Employees change … that’s why it’s important to have it written down,”
Staley said, explaining that it is not enough to have the benefits be
the equivalent of an unspoken understanding rather than a policy.
So what will it take to gain not just an official soft-benefits policy
but also a policy that extends to health insurance and other coverage
currently offered to the legal spouses of UNC employees?
UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser answered this question in a
recent open-house discussion at his campus, according to a Feb. 9 issue
of The Daily Tarheel.
“It’s really not money … I’ll be really candid about this, [domestic
partner benefits are] going to be really tough in North Carolina,” he
told his audience.
Nonetheless, slow progress is being made in other arenas, as most
Fortune 500 companies offer domestic partner benefits, Herring said,
and the state of Kentucky recently passed a provision to extend
benefits to partners of gay and lesbian state employees.
Though change won’t necessarily come quickly, everyone agreed adamantly that change is necessary.
“This is all about equity between employees on campus. ASU is
potentially going to lose employees if we continue to have a situation
where a certain class of people is unable to receive benefits for their
loved ones,” Staley said.
“It’s a goal that reflects justice and equality for all employees,”
Pombo said. “If the university and its students knew that whole
families were being affected, the likelihood of changing [the current
policy] would be higher and faster.”
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