RNC Chief: Gay Marriage Will Burden Small Business

[steven johnson]

I believe this is the same excuse that is used to not increase the minimum wage. Where is all this trickle down money that was supposed to take us to the promised land?

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 16, 2009
Filed at 12:46 p.m. ET

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) -- Republicans can reach a broader base by recasting gay marriage as an issue that could dent pocketbooks as small businesses spend more on health care and other benefits, GOP Chairman Michael Steele said Saturday.

Steele said that was just an example of how the party can retool its message to appeal to young voters and minorities without sacrificing core conservative principles. Steele said he used the argument weeks ago while chatting on a flight with a college student who described herself as fiscally conservative but socially liberal on issues like gay marriage.

''Now all of a sudden I've got someone who wasn't a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for,'' Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. ''So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.''

As Steele talked about ways the party could position itself, he also poked fun at his previous pledge to give the GOP a ''hip-hop makeover.''


RNC Chief: Gay Marriage Will Burden Small Business

Ironically, consultants have found that less than 1% of same sex partners sign up for company benefits when they are offered.

Impact on employers: In terms of employers where marriage opponents fear higher benefit costs, Badgett and Mercer Human Resources Consulting separately find less than 1% of employees with a same-sex partner sign up for domestic partner benefits when a company offers them. Badgett finds less than 0.3% of Massachusetts firms' employees signed up for spousal benefits when that state legalized same-sex marriage.


Same-sex marriage

[MadMaddie]

1. Wait....then his argument would include heterosexual marriage too

right? Because if a small business owner has an employee that gets married then the business owner is now paying health care for an additional person right?

Steele and the other numnuts really don't think any of their arguments through do they?:banghead:

[customerserviceguy]

2. What they think is that their audience

will draw a distinction between a young heterosexual couple marrying to create babies to "serve the Lord" and a couple who will engage in behavior that is banned in the same paragraph as eating shellfish...

Problem is, down in GA, they might be right.

[LSparkle]

4. Except those dependents become additional "burdens" too ...

I don't know how this works -- not having bred myself --
but does a company's contribution toward healthcare
increase when an employee has dependents that they want
to cover? And would it cost a business more to insure
5 kids for an employee than it would for one?

[customerserviceguy]

5. I've never worked in that industry

but its my understanding that most health insurance contracts are experience-rated, in other words, next year's premiums are based on last year's claims. Obviously, if you have a premium for a "family" or "employee and two or more dependents", then you're going to have a much greater expense if you hire people who have families of five or more children than if you hire people who have only two. You're going to collect the same premium in both cases.

[hulklogan]

3. My mother's small wedding planning business would have benefitted from marriage equality.

Especially in the rural area where she lives. Too bad she decided to close up shop a couple of years ago.

Take that, Michael Steele.

[LeftyMom]

7. And florists and people who do alterations and organizations that rent halls...

Meanwhile if you get them rambling about unmarried straight people then all of the sudden stable marriages are vital to the economy. They can't make up their damned minds, that's for sure.

[QC]

6. How is this worse than "God is in the mix"?

Both sound pretty stupid to me.

[Creideiki]

8. Sounds like yet another argument for single-payer healthcare provided by the government

It's really funny--no strike that. It's really dumbfounding that so many people do not know why we have employers as the primary source of health insurance in the country. Hint: it's not to benefit the people.

If an employee is beholden to the employer for health insurance, then employees have less ability to move around in the labor marketplace. Small employers are burdened more heavily than large employers just because of pooling and the law of averages.