Members of the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners were contrite yesterday morning, admitting that they swallowed some barely believable numbers without any question.
"I'm a little bit embarrassed at the decision we made," Commissioner Karl Zobrist said.
Earlier this month, the commissioners were told that cutting domestic partner benefits would save KCPD more than $421,000 on annual health insurance costs -- a huge score in a tight budget that will barely keep the current number of cops on the street.
But that proposed savings has raised plenty of questions. Yesterday, the commissioners vowed to get to the bottom of it.
Last week, the ACLU and several other gay and lesbian advocacy groups created an online petition that questioned how eliminating coverage for eight domestic partners could possibly constitute half-a-million dollars in health insurance savings. According to Dan Winter, ACLU's executive director, that effort flooded the police board with more than 250 letters concerned about the fuzzy math and the worrisome impact on LGBT equality.
"We believe the decision made last month was based on information that was incomplete," Winter told the board yesterday.
He pointed out that those claiming the domestic partner benefits make up just .02 percent of the force. But, according to Blue Cross Blue Shield, cutting them would shave off 1.5 percent of the department's policy costs. Which is strange, Winter explained, because more than 20 years of actuarial data show that domestic partners are no more expensive than folks with a marriage license.
"So that seems remarkably high and bears some explaining from Blue Cross Blue Shield," Winter said.
Rachel Whipple, the deputy chief of KCPD's administration bureau, said the department had asked for a clarification from the insurer. All they got was a three-sentence letter, confirming that, if the KCPD added domestic partners back in the mix, they wouldn't get the hefty discount. But that vague, declarative letter wasn't enough to satisfy the concerns of the commissioners.
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Just wanted to let you know... your web site looks really weird in Chameleon on a Mac
I'm not defending anybody here, but there might be some reasons for the figure that don't come through clearly because BCBS is being secretive.
First, even if Domestic Partner couples are 0.2% of the force, they will be a somewhat larger percentage of the force's "couples", though probably not 1.5%. And it may make a difference in terms of whether or not the couples are more likely to be female (I'm not sure how this would actually play out -- in the 1980s and 1990s when DP programs began, male couples were considered more risky because of the possibility of HIV/AIDS; these days a lesbian couple is probably much more likely than a male couple to have a birth to one of the covered partners which might mean that the cost to the insurer would be higher). And then there is always specific plan experience (if it isn't a community-rated plan)and just because overall or "in general" there isn't a difference between opposite and same-sex couples doesn't mean that there hasn't been different experience (i.e., actual costs for health care) for DPs in KC when compared to opposite sex couples.
The answer of course is national health care!
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