OUR VIEW: 'Plus One' would insure uninsured
City should reform health care plan
It’s not a gay thing, a right, a left thing or a religious thing. It’s a people thing, and it’s the right thing to do.
City Council members have decided it’s not the right time to mess with the health care plan that’s part of each city employee’s compensation, so disparity will continue for now. The push for “Plus One” benefits appears to have stalled.
As it stands, a city employee is able to extend full health care benefits to a spouse for a nominal fee. Unmarried employees earn insurance only for themselves and dependent children.Though some choose to make it a gay rights issue, Plus One is more an issue of correcting unfair compensation and insuring more people while we’re at it. Despite the naive view held by millions of Americans, no employer gives employees health insurance. All insured employees, whether working for government or private industry, buy their health insurance. The health care policy is merely a substantial non-cash source of compensation for work rendered by each employee. View it like this: A $60,000 job without health insurance roughly equals a $50,000 job with health insurance — give or take a few grand.
Employers cannot magically create health insurance and bestow it upon employees. It comes out of the money available to pay employees, and therefore at a cost to each employee. Any other view requires a creative approach to math. Because health insurance is earned compensation, and not a product of the mayor’s magic wand, those who are able to extend it to a spouse earn considerably more than those who may not. Unwed employees, therefore, subsidize the higher compensation of their colleagues who are married.
Compensation disparities are fine, if they are the choice of a private employer. A private business owner has a right to place more value on married employees, because a private employer maintains some rights to discriminate. Few do this, however, because it’s not good business. In today’s hyper-competitive business climate, most employers can’t afford discrimination. They can afford to worry only about results.
The city government, by contrast, has no right to discriminate. It cannot compensate a police captain at a higher wage than her direct peers, simply because she is married. Under the current system, however, the city does just that. The city gets away with it because society mistakes health insurance as a gift, rather than earned compensation.
The city’s best mechanism for achieving compensation parity is to establish Plus One benefits. This would allow each employee to extend health benefits, for a nominal fee, to one other adult. When a government employer pays part of a wage in the form of health insurance, the employee should decide how to spend it — whether married or not. Imagine what some single employees might do to improve the community’s health by insuring others. A single street sweeper would be able to insure a sibling, parent, friend, neighbor, or some homeless person down by the creek.
Councilman Randy Purvis had considered introducing Plus One benefits, but decided to duck out for now. Purvis believes the community is in financial turmoil and stress, telling The Gazette’s Daniel Chacon: “I just don’t see a need to stir that pot if it doesn’t need to be stirred.” It must be stirred, because it’s the right thing to do. Principle should drive council decisions, not assumptions about the community’s mood.
Two of three studies show Plus One benefits as cost neutral to the city, and one has shown only a minor increase in cost. One reason Plus One isn’t a major cost concern is the fact more local citizens would be insured — because unwed employees could insure them. That would mean fewer uninsured residents showing up at city-owned hospitals at the city’s expense. If a One Plus plan ended up costing more, city officials could make it cost neutral by simply adjusting the dynamics of the plan, raising deductibles and co-pays.
It may not seem the ideal time to tinker with the city’s benefits package, but it is.
It’s a great time to correct this compensation disparity, and improve the community’s health. — Wayne Laugesen, editorial page editor, for the editorial board. Friend Wayne on Facebook.
Our view editorials uphold a proud tradition of advocating individual freedom, constitutional law, faith, and limited government. Editorial options have no connection with The Gazette’s news division, and do not express the views of all Gazette associates.
