This is interesting. Very interesting:
Some of the largest employers in Massachusetts have decided not to extend health benefits to spouses of gay and lesbian employees, saying their federally regulated health plans are not bound by the Massachusetts court ruling permitting gay marriage.
These employers provide medical care through what are known as self-insured health plans, in which the employer, not an insurer, collects the premiums and pays the medical and hospital bills of its workers. These employers said they are not required to cover same-sex spouses because self-insured plans are regulated by federal law, which defines marriage as a union only between a man and a woman. Sixty-six percent of large US employers with more than 500 workers are self-insured, according to Mercer Human Resource Consulting.
Hmm. Isn’t Massachusets the state of Ted Kennedy and John Kerry? I guess it is all Bush’s fault. Woops, wait a second, Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Blimey!
The act, signed by President Bill Clinton, is also the legal underpinning for excluding gay and lesbian spouses from federal programs, such as Social Security.
The act states ‘‘the word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex.’’ Self-insured plans are regulated by a federal pension law, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
And the DU’ers do not like this one bit.
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Yet one more reason I think Clinton is overrated.
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WTF???? Clinton is overrated?????
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clinton signed DOMA into law n/t
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and don’t forget "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" and NAFTA and the "ending welfare as we know it". I agree. Bill Clinton was the best President the Republicans ever had.
So now he is our President. LOL. Cannabalism of the Dems.
Do you go to DU just to find people to make fun of? That would be like me farming Free Republic or ChristianExodus.org and posting their comments on PW as examples of “typical Republicans”.
Try Kevin Drum or Josh Marshall or something.
I never worry about social legislation like Gay Marriage or Domestic Partners because I know that, eventually, the lawyers will get in there and make it unworkable for anyone involved. I can’t wait for the first gay or lesbian divorce. There’ll either be no male to sh*t on or two of them.
It has already happened.
actually, PW, I go to the DU at times because I am seeing where some of the stuff on the political forum I post on is coming from, and sometimes I run into something interesting. Every once in a while, amazingly, I will find something I actually agree with them on. But, I must be honest, the DU can give real good copy at times, at least as far as right wingers are concerned. Talking Points memo and Kevin Drum just aren’t as fun as the DU.
I really do not think they are typical Dems, no matter what I may, at times, say. They are the fringe. Unfortunatly, some of their stuff makes it out.