MPR’s Mike Mulcachy interviews a staff member of the University of Minnesota about the enactment of same sex benefits policy for school employees. The initial enrollment of spouse/partner program was eight people.
MPR’s Mike Mulcachy interviews a staff member of the University of Minnesota about the enactment of same sex benefits policy for school employees. The initial enrollment of spouse/partner program was eight people.
SPEAKER 1 (ON PHONE): The initial enrollment was eight people. So we haven't had an overwhelming number of people interested, but that's one of the reasons that we felt we could do it. It's not a terribly high cost thing. It's not a large number of people.
And people for whom this policy has-- for some people, this policy has meant a great deal. And it's really been very helpful to them in their situations. But we've not had a huge enrollment, which was what we expected, frankly.
SPEAKER 2: Eight people out of how many employed at the university/
SPEAKER 1 (ON PHONE): Oh, boy, about 20,000. We have a large faculty as well as the staff for a large teaching hospital as well as the university. I think, actually, we've got about 20,000 employees with about 17,000 FTEs. So very large population of people who work here. And so out of that pool, it's not a very large number of people availed themselves of the use of the policy at this point.
SPEAKER 2: Was there any significant opposition to the plan when it was first enacted?
SPEAKER 1 (ON PHONE): There wasn't any significant opposition in the university community. There were some concerns raised at the level of the board of regents, particularly with regard to what impact this would have on overall health costs. The regents have been very concerned about any additional benefits or any expansion of benefit programs and what the impact would be on health costs and costs to the state and the university.
We are, however, pretty much self-insured and no state money goes into this program. Employees basically pay the, the cost of this program. The people who enroll in the spouse partner program pay the full cost of the premiums themselves. So we tried to address that concern.
We had a few people out in the state who had concerns about the program, which we also expected. But otherwise, it went very, very smoothly. And we had a lot of people thinking that it was a very good thing to do.
SPEAKER 2: Was some of that opposition from places outside the university more on the social issue of homosexuality instead of the cost of it as the opposition seemed to center at the university?
SPEAKER 1 (ON PHONE): Yeah, that's right. And the opposition or the concern-- and I wouldn't really characterize it as opposition, but the concern at the board level was related to cost. I think the concern from individuals around the state, the few who expressed their views about it, were related more to the issue of supporting a gay lifestyle or supporting any non-traditional family more than the cost issue. So we heard from those people as well as some people who had concerns about costs.
SPEAKER 2: Well, what was the main argument in favor of doing this?
SPEAKER 1 (ON PHONE): Well, that this was a section of the university community that was not being very well served. That there was a legitimate need to cover domestic partners, just as we do people who are in more traditional family situations. And the bottom line being that this was the right thing to do, that we offer a large number of benefits to people with spouses and children, and that we really needed to look at providing at least some similar opportunities for people who are in just a different kind of family situation. Basically, it was, I think, an issue of fairness and providing health coverage for people who would need it, the right thing to do.
SPEAKER 2: Well, if only eight people have signed up in a year, I would imagine that if there was a lot of fuss or any controversy when this was first announced, that much of it has probably died down by now.
SPEAKER 1 (ON PHONE): We haven't really heard anything about it. It's gone very, very smoothly. We haven't had any opposition to it. We haven't had any concerns raised about the program since it was passed, basically.
So it's like a lot of new benefits or a lot of things that change the benefit program where there are some questions raised or some concerns initially, but then the program, once it's put in place, runs very smoothly without any difficulty. So it's really gone very well. We haven't heard much. We haven't really heard anything from people who object to it.
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