[Vision2020] UI & Discrimination Against Stepchildren

[Saundra Lund]

Visionaries:

Just when I thought the UI was finished sinking to slimy depths with respect
to employee & retiree health coverage and had started to rebound in a good
way, I've found I was wrong.  Instead, the UI has now descended to new
unimaginable & unfathomable discriminatory anti-family lows.  We received
our Open Enrollment package in the mail today, and I'm incredibly offended .
. . and hurt.

You see, a stepchild isn't considered to be a part of the employee's family
anymore unless he/she lives at home.  This is in direct contrast to
"biological" and "adopted" children who are eligible to be covered by UI
health insurance until they turn 26 regardless of where they live.  Shoot, a
"biological" child under age 26 could even get married, have children, move
to another country . . . and *still* be eligible to be covered on his/her
parent's health care insurance through the UI.

But the stepchildren of UI employees?  Nope, sorry -- too bad, so sad.  We
apparently took the wrong approach in encouraging OUR daughter to work
towards self-sufficiency.  Maybe we should just force her to move back in
with us so we can get her health insurance coverage through the UI again
(she got booted off when she turned 19; she's 21 now).

And, never mind the fact that my dh has been the ONLY father OUR daughter
has ever known -- he's been her father since she was not quite two, through
elementary school, through junior high school, and through high school
graduation -- which is a lot longer than many marriages last these days, and
through the wee hours of today.  We're still going strong as a family, the
ONLY family our daughter has EVER known.

According to the UI, my husband is apparently not OUR daughter's "real"
father in spite of the fact that we are legally married and in spite of the
fact that my husband lived with OUR daughter full-time from diapers through
the years when --  were we were a civilized society, all girls between 13 &
16 would be sent to a desert island to torment only each other -- and high
school graduation.  And, we're still going strong as a family, the ONLY
family our daughter has EVER known.

We had her last name legally changed before she started kindergarten so
there would NEVER be any doubts about who her family was, but none of that
is good enough for the UI.

Nope -- she's a "just" a stepchild, according to the UI . . . not worthy of
being considered a part of our family for health insurance purposes.

We found nothing in the UI Open Enrollment materials indicating the
rationale for this decidedly anti-family definition of children, a
definition that is at odds with the health insurance definitions of the
State of Idaho, LCSC, NIC, BSU, ISU, etc.  Given the fact that the UI is
self-insured, it is the UI that is calling the shots -- that definition
*wasn't* dictated by some big, bad health insurance carrier.

Once again, the UI has taken a position that penalizes its loyal employees
and their families, and I'm frankly beyond.

It's been difficult enough that virtually each year my dh has been employed
by the UI, we've gotten poorer & poorer due to no wage increases & wages
falling further & further behind peer institutions -- let alone inflation --
but this discriminatory definition of children really is a bridge too far,
and it seems to me the mental giants behind this crappola are vastly
overpaid.  Waste at the UI?  You betcha!

There is, no doubt, a special place in Hades reserved for those at the UI
responsible for what is essentially an institutionalization of the
Cinderella effect, but that's unlikely to offer any meaningful solace -- or
help -- to UI families that happen to encompass young adult stepchildren.


Saundra Lund
Moscow, ID

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do
nothing.
~Edmund Burke