The Political Whore

The Tampa Tribune reported that Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin Beckner had put the issue of same-sex benefits on a future agenda, but I heard from Beckner late this evening, and he is worried that the Trib didn’t get the story right.

“This is totally going to get blown out of proportion,” Beckner said. “This has nothing to do with gay rights. It’s about what is best for our community.”

The Trib reported:

Kevin Beckner, Hillsborough County’s first openly gay commissioner, is about to reopen the potentially explosive issue of giving health care benefits to the domestic partners of county employees.

Beckner requested that commissioners discuss the issue Thursday at their regularly scheduled meeting. The last time the issue came up, in April 2004, a split commission instructed County Administrator Pat Bean not to take any steps to offer the coverage.

… Beckner’s gambit drew immediate fire from Mark Sharpe, considered by many to be one of the more-moderate commissioners. Sharpe said expanding government spending while the county and nation are mired in a financial crisis is “irresponsible.”

“We sit on the edge of economic collapse, and our government should be focused on tightening our belts and curbing spending,” Sharpe said.

Beckner said, however, he has not put approval for any domestic partnership benefits — for gays or straights — on the agenda. He wants the commission to overturn a previous board’s prohibition against staff studying the cost-benefits of such a change to allow county employees to examine the issue further, since the county is renegotiating its insurance package presently. He said he would not consider adding new benefits until its fiscal impact can be studied.

“The studies I have seen is that there is virtually no cost in adding these kinds of benefits to a health-care plan,” Beckner said this evening. “I contend this is a matter of economic development. If you want to talk about the rising cost of health care, two of the leading contributing factors are the uninsured and the underinsured. When we have the opportunity, when it is economically feasible to insure more people, … it results in long-term savings to our community.”

He said studies he has seen show that 67 percent of those who take advantage of such domestic partnership are of the opposite gender, not same-sex. Since a majority of Fortune 500 companies offer such benefits, it is time, he reasons, that Hillsborough County act more like the kinds of industries that it wants to attract to the region.

“This is not a gay rights issue,” he said. “This is about economic development. It’s not just about our employees. It is about our community.”

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