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Gays Rally For Virginia ObamaCare
By Greg L | 8 December 2009 | Virginia Politics | 7 Comments
Since the story broke about the Kaine Administration’s under-the-radar attempt to provide health insurance benefits to the “domestic partners” of state employees, not only has the Kaine Administration stuck with the crazy idea, but the homosexual lobby has gone to battle in support of it and think they can win. It’s like watching the push for increasingly unpopular nationalized health care play out at the state level as well, where elected officials and bureaucrats seem determined to enact unpopular policies we don’t want and can’t afford. Perhaps that’s what you should expect when your lame duck Governor is also the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
To recap, Kaine is seeking a change in the Virginia Administrative Code that would expand the Commonwealth’s employee health insurance plan to cover anyone living in the same household as a state employee, instead of just the spouses and children of state employees. Although the administration claims somehow that this would not add to the expense taxpayers bear for state employee benefits, it’s very hard to see how vastly increasing the pool of coverage wouldn’t require bigger government to manage enrollment and claims for all the new insured, even if the newly insured were paying the entire premiums. The plan is devoid of any details, allowing the administration to make all sorts of claims about the fiscal impacts and management of the program and there’s no way to verify any of them.
The code change was quietly announced on the Commonwealth’s web site and is now in the public comment period, and from the looks of the public comments it’s awfully clear there’s an organized effort from the left to champion the change. A strong contingent of public university employees who are covered under this plan have weighed in with comments, as well as members of PFLAG and “PinkEssence International”, trying to create the impression that Virginians want to have the Commonwealth’s employee benefit plan expanded to become the first iteration of nationalized health care, with the “domestic partners” of state employees getting the first slice of this cake.
The Family Foundation noticed this effort and is trying to rally social conservatives to participate in the public comment period. They argue that it is unconstitutional to extend privileges to unmarried individuals in the wake of the Marriage Amendment. While their intent here is laudable, their analysis of this proposal is off the mark, as the proposal is carefully crafted so as not to extend any benefits of marriage, but to extend health coverage to anyone living with an employee of the Commonwealth under any and all circumstances. There is no constitutional problem with this. Had the proposal more narrowly applied to “domestic partners”, it would have been unconstitutional, but there’s really nothing that says the Commonwealth cannot define the insured pool in an employee health plan to cover the most tenuous and tangential relationships with employees as long as they’re not re-defining the word “spouse.” If Kaine wanted to extend coverage to anyone living in even the same municipality as a state employee, it would have been constitutional. Unwise beyond compare, but constitutional.
While the intent of the Kaine Administration has been to throw a bone to the homosexual lobby, there’s a bigger issue here. Kaine is re-purposing the employee benefits program beyond what it is supposed to be — a means of attracting and retaining employees for the Commonwealth. Instead, Kaine is trying to engineer social outcomes by expanding this employee benefit program to all sorts of people beyond that which an employee benefit plan would cover. As people are added to the rolls of the program who were unable to obtain health insurance elsewhere, the “risk pool” expands to include people who are more expensive, driving up the premium costs for the Commonwealth which already top $650 million annually. The only way to address that in later years as costs increase exponentially is to mandate participation by people who are better insurance risks, support from new “dedicated revenue streams”, and of course rationed care.
Yep, ObamaCare at the state level. Mandated health insurance, tax penalties for failing to enroll in the plan, and everyone ends up on what was originally a state employee benefits program — pretty close to the current proposals in Congress about which voters are increasingly skeptical. It’s certainly not anything Governor-Elect Bob McDonnell is likely to allow, nor should he, but the public comment period closes on this before he takes office leaving him with little ammunition to argue that the public doesn’t want this monstrosity if the homosexual lobby has been pounding in tons of supportive comments.
If you’re interested in derailing this crazy leftist bandwagon, I’d urge you to weigh in with your input here.
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Yikes, perhaps it really is “in the water”!
“Virginia Rep. Jim Moran and other federal lawmakers are
seeking a study on whether transgender fish in the
Potomac present a health risk for humans …
Test have found more than 80 percent of small mouth
bass in the Potomac exhibiting cross-gender characteristics.”
The Washington Examiner
(12-8-2009)
A question for you.
Would this also apply to a state employee living in one of our many single family dorms with 8 to 10 illegal aliens? I guess it wouldn’t matter if the state employee was a citizen or not, but do the rest of the “renters” get insurance coverage?
according to this - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/03/AR2009120304329.html - article, the employee would pay the expense, and it will not cost the state additional fees.
But, the devil is in the details.
There is no restriction against providing illegal aliens with health insurance in the regulation as it was proposed. Whether other provisions of Virginia law would prevent this is uncertain, at best.
It’s entirely possible this rule change would end up benefiting illegals.
Whether or not you can support the moral argument of providing health insurance to gays which I could not, it seems to me that the current wording opens up the possibility of massive fraud against the tax payers of Virginia. This is just another stupid political move by our lame duck of a governor. I cannot see this rule change surviving long after the next inauguration in any case.
What I’m wondering is how is this plan going to be implemented? Suppose I work for the state, can I just walk into the HR dept. with just anyone and say this is my “domestic partner” and they would be covered? I wonder if they would ask for proof? heehee.
Most all the problems real and imagined can be instantly solved if everyone in Gore’s cult just stops breathing and emitting the evil C02.
I wonder if anyone has any statistics of how many people died or suffered major issues because the current health system flat out denied them help? Not that it would matter it seems factual data doesn’t matter much anymore.
At least Kaine, as DNC Chairman, hasn’t gone as far as Obama in promoting the homosexual agenda. Here’s something about his appointee of “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings just to show how insane this can get when we take our eyes off the ball:
Read more here.