House committee rejects domestic partner benefits

The Michigan House Committee on Oversight, Reform and Ethics voted 4-2 on a straight party line vote this morning to send a bill to the full House to reverse a Michigan Civil Service Commission plan to extend health benefits to the unmarried domestic partners of state employees.

The MCSC decision can only be overturned by a 2/3 vote of both houses of the legislature, which Gov. Snyder has encouraged them to do. The Senate has already passed the necessary resolution by the requisite vote, but it may be more difficult in the House because the Republicans need to get 11 Democrats to vote with them.

The committee heard testimony from Jan Winter, the director of the Office of the State Employer, who testified in favor of the bill, and from Jay Kaplan, staff attorney for the ACLU, who urged the committee to reject it.

Winter argued that the $8 million projected cost of the bill was “extremely conservative” because they could find no identical plan in any state to project the full cost. But one of the legislators on the panel pointed to a similar plan in Ingham County that has existed for several years, and said that extrapolating the rates of use of that benefit plan the cost to the state should be about $1.6 million annually. Either way, the full cost of the benefit plan is so small that it is measured in the thousandths of a percent of the overall budget.

Kaplan argued that the committee should reject the bill because the benefit came about as the result of collective bargaining negotiations.

“This benefit was collectively bargained for in good faith by state employee unions and the state of Michigan,” he said, “and rescinding this provision would not only nullify an essential part of this labor contract, but serve to undermine the ability of both workers and management to rely on the collective bargaining process.”

Kaplan also argued that while opponents were focused on the cost of the provision, they were ignoring the economic benefit of offering such coverage. He noted that most Fortune 500 companies and many cities and universities offered domestic partner benefits because studies show that it helps them attract the most talented employees.

Those entities, he said, “have all provided health insurance benefits to domestic partners of employees, not just out of benevolence, but because they know it makes economic sense. Studies show that companies that provide support for the diversity of their workforce are able to compete best when it comes to recruiting talent.”