Gay Calls Insurance Bias Frustrating

A gay Escondido city employee says he feels frustrated and “flat-out discriminated against” by the City Council’s recent refusal to grant his live-in partner the same health insurance benefits it offers to the spouses of heterosexual employees.

“I’m not asking for special treatment. I have a spouse, and because he’s the same sex I can’t cover him with insurance like everybody else can,” said Larry Feiler, 27, a microcomputer specialist and five-year city employee. “He’s my spouse, and we share our lives together as other couples do.”

In a closed session earlier this month, the council denied Feiler’s request that the city adopt a personnel policy that would treat notarized “domestic partnership agreements” as marriages, opening the door for gay spouses to receive health benefits.

“We didn’t think the community really was at a point socially or emotionally to provide that particular type of assistance,” Mayor Jerry Harmon said. “It’s still a relatively conservative community. None of the members of the council disagreed. . . . There are other cities that are more accepting of those relationships. Things might change (in Escondido) someday. I just don’t know when that will be.”

Councilmen Sid Hollins and Elmer Cameron declined to discuss the decision, calling it a confidential personnel matter. Council members Lori Holt Pfeiler and Rick Foster could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

“I don’t think anybody should be talking about it,” Hollins said, adding, “I would feel very badly if Larry feels he’s been discriminated against.”

City Manager Doug Clark said that, if state or federal laws are created that expand employers’ responsibilities toward workers in domestic partnership agreements--a marriage-type document issued and recognized by some cities--then Escondido will follow suit.

But, Clark said, the city has no plans of its own to craft any ordinances or personnel policies to redefine gay workers’ rights.

“This is not an issue that should be decided on a city-by-city basis,” Clark said. “Even if we agreed, he couldn’t get the coverage. None of our insurance companies accepts domestic partners.”

The city’s medical insurance is provided by Kaiser Permanente, Health Net, PacifiCare and Aetna Choice, city officials said.

Feiler said his fight for benefits began last November, when he enrolled in two health insurance plans and listed Brent England, 29, as his spouse. The two have been together for more than a year, Feiler said, and have an organic produce farm in Vista.

But both insurance companies denied England coverage.

Next, Feiler tried to secure vision and dental benefits for England, thinking he stood a better chance of being accepted because the city is self-insured for those services.

Again, he met with rejection.

Jane Paradowski, the city’s personnel director, said that, if the city covered gay spouses’ vision and dental care, it might set a precedent forcing the city to offer full medical coverage to “significant others” of all sexual orientations.

“It’s just one step leading toward something else,” Paradowski said. “It’s a difficult situation.”

Paradowski and other officials said they know of no insurance companies in Southern California that extend coverage to gay employees’ spouses.

Feiler estimates that there are about two dozen gay city employees in Escondido, but doubts that many would apply for spousal coverage “because of the stigma.”

Feiler has won one concession: City officials have dropped restrictions on how employees may use their five family sick leave days.

Feiler said he took two half-days off this spring when England was ill and was told afterward that he could only use those days to care for a spouse or close family member.

Soon afterward, administrators relented, Feiler said, and removed restrictions on the family leave days.

Steve Leitner, president of the 130-member North County Gay and Lesbian Assn., said he was surprised by the council’s action because his group was just starting to view Escondido as “a progressive city.”

Leitner said that, in May, Deputy City Manager Jack Anderson addressed his group and indicated that the city was “pursuing progress on recognizing domestic partnerships.”

Anderson said his comments must have been misunderstood.

“I did not leave the impression we were seriously considering a change because of the restrictions of our current insurance carriers,” Anderson said, adding that spending time with the gay group showed an open-minded attitude on the city’s part.

Leitner says that argument is a copout.

“As a customer, they can ask whatever they want from their insurance companies,” he said. “There’s a large gay population in North County. They’re good taxpayers and probably some of the best employees a city could have. They deserve to be adequately represented.”

Steve Fulkerson, executive director of the Lesbian and Gay Men’s Community Center in San Diego, predicts that cases like Feiler’s will become more common as gays “start demanding our rights and facing bigotry.”

“Unlike the stereotypes that say our relationships last 15 minutes, many gay and lesbian couples are in long-term relationships, and we just don’t have those rights that other people do.”