Palm Beach County Human Rights Council: Florida attorney general opens door for domestic partner benefits

(Tallahassee, Florida) Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum's Office has implemented a policy that allows his employees to use sick leave to care for their domestic partners.

"With this pro-family policy, Attorney General McCollum has become the second constitutional officer in Florida history to recognize the needs of non-traditional families," said Rand Hoch, President of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council.

The Palm Beach County Human Rights Council is a non-profit organization that has been in the forefront of domestic partnership issues in Florida for more than 15 years.

At the Council's request, Florida CFO Alex Sink instituted a policy permitting her office's employees to use sick leave to care for domestic partners.

On October 17, shortly after Sink's policy went into effect, Hoch wrote to Attorney General McCollum asking him to consider implementing a similar policy.

"By doing so, in times of family emergencies, all of your employees will have the same opportunities to care for their family members," Hoch wrote.

By letter dated December 17, Cathy Christensen, McCollum's Human Resources Administrator, notified the Hoch that the Attorney General's sick leave policy would would not specifically address domestic partners per se, it would "provide enough latitude" for employees to use their sick leave to care for their domestic partners.

"While CFO Sink's policy specifically addressed domestic partnerships, Attorney General McCollum's policy is more circumspect," said Hoch.

"Since the Office of the Attorney General is, in effect, the state's law firm, I can understand his reluctance to formally recognize domestic partnerships," said Hoch.

"Still, the effect of both pro-family policies is the same," said Hoch. "Employees working for two of our state's constitutional officers now may use sick leave to care for their domestic partners in times of emergency,

Currently, the University of Florida, Florida International University, Broward Community College, Florida Keys Community College, Hillsborough Community College and Miami-Dade College are the only state employers offering the full range of domestic partner benefits. Those benefits include health insurance, as well as sick leave and bereavement leave.

The Palm Beach County Human Rights Council has not yet heard from Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Charles Bronson, who also was asked to revise his office's policy.

Early next year, the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council intends to ask Governor Crist to direct Department of Management Services Secretary Linda South to investigate the possibility of offering domestic partner benefits to all state employees.

Indian CEOs fail to counter stress: Assocham

New Delhi: Corporate India executives may be adept at managing businesses, but are a majority of them are inept at handling stress, says a survey by Assocham.


The study by the industry body found that 68 per cent of Indian CEOs, managing businesses with a turnover exceeding Rs 1,000 crore, were unable to beat stress and other related issues.


In its report on 'CEOs Ways to Manage Stress', Assocham said of the 400 Indian CEOs surveyed, only 32 per cent succeeded in countering stress and fatigue through yoga, sports, morning stroll and music.


"CEOs in the age-group of 50-65 take time off in morning for yoga and prefer to play golf, visit hill stations and parks to overcome their day to day stress and fatigue," Assocham President Venugopal Dhoot said in a statement.


The report observed that younger CEOs in the age group of 30-45 years are more health conscious as compared to those in the age group of 50-65 years.


"Going to gym motivates and inspires the younger CEOs to handle pressure and encounter stress and fatigue," it said.


Lot of pressure generates as the CEOs set ambitious targets for themselves within a time bound period, Dhoot said.


However, young entrepreneurs are now choosing a new way to overcome the stress by watching movies with close ones, listening to music and driving, Dhoot said.


"Over 40 per cent of the CEOs are taking to ayurvedic treatments like naturopathy, massage, acupuncture and acupressure," Assocham said, adding that metros and towns in the coming 5-6 years would have huge ayurvedic centres for treating stress related disorders.

Twilight gloom

Seventy-two-year-old Nikhil Mukherjee had approached The Telegraph in April when he got to know that his insurer was going to charge him Rs 26,000 as premium this year against Rs 13,500 he paid last December to renew the medical insurance policy he bought eight years ago.

Many elderly people, including Mukherjee, started thinking of discontinuing their medical insurance policies as one insurer after another started making health insurance unaffordable for what they called the “high risk category” by raising premium rates by more than 100 per cent.

Panel formed

Concerned about the situation, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) had constituted a committee to look into various issues, including incidents where people above 60 years were denied cover by many insurers, particularly the private sector ones.

The committee submitted its report early this month.

The report, however, has nothing much to offer to senior citizens, except for the fact that it had recommended that no senior citizen should be denied a health insurance policy by any insurer.

The committee has recommended that insurers should look at a base premium of Rs 3,000 (per annum) per Rs 1 lakh sum assured at an entry age of 50 years.

The renewal premium for each subsequent year with no claim would be increased by an age loading factor of 2 per cent of the base premium. A 60-year-old person who wants a health insurance with a sum assured of Rs 1 lakh will have to pay a premium of Rs 3,600.

No change

The premium rate suggested by the IRDA-appointed panel is not very different from what National Insurance Company or United India Assurance Company is charging for its senior citizen medical insurance schemes. Both the public sector insurers charge a premium of between Rs 4,100 and Rs 4,200 on a sum assured of Rs 1 lakh for a 60-year-old who wants to buy a fresh policy.

Another public sector insurer, New India Assurance, is also coming out with a medical insurance policy exclusively for senior citizens with a premium rate of around Rs 3,800 per Rs 1 lakh sum assured. Private insurers that offer individual health insurance plans exclusively to senior citizens, however, charge a higher premium in the range of Rs 5,000 or more per Rs 1 lakh sum assured.

Therefore, even if the committee’s recommendations are implemented, the premium cost for senior citizens won’t come down appreciably.

Low-cost plans

The panel has, however, suggested low-cost limited benefit plans instead of existing mediclaims that are mostly indemnity plans in nature. Benefit policy plans provide lump sum amounts on diagnosis of a specified disease for treatment or surgery.

For example, in a hospital cash plan, an insurer pays a fixed amount for each day of hospitalisation.

Benefit plans cost low because they come with in-built controls such as less policy administration and claim settlement costs on the part of the insurer. Misuse of insurance money is also low in these kind of plans as the insured gets a fixed pay regardless of the actual expenditure — any expenditure over and above the amount would have to be borne by the insured.

Cost control

Though the committee has identified affordability and accessibility as the two most important issues in senior citizen health insurance, it dealt more with cost control measures such as co-payment by the insured, capping entitlements under expenditure heads, introducing deductibles and co-insurance.

Co-payment, deductible and co-insurance mean the insured also pays part of the expense(s) covered under the insurance plan. According to the committee, these are all in-built measures to control costs and misuse of insurance policies. Once these excess costs are controlled, the premium will come down.

According to B.D. Banerjee, a member of the committee, a restructuring of existing products is a more likely outcome rather than an all-round reduction in premium rates if the panel’s recommendations are accepted.

So, if you don’t want to pay much, you will have to be satisfied with plans that offer limited benefits such as only the cost of getting treatment in a general ward.

If you would like to get your prostate operation covered during the first year itself of the policy commencement, you will have to pay higher.

In short, senior citizens will be offered a variety of products, but will have to choose the benefits according to their paying capacity.