LGBT Parenting

What are your thoughts?

Ok...so still writing this damn paper...but I wanted to get your take...

With the launch of Obamacare and the Repeal of DOMA there is weird loophole: If you live in a non-marriage state and want to use the market to purchase healthcare, you have to file as single. I can't really come up with a situation where it isn't beneficial to file single. For instance in our case, A is a SAHM so she would qualify for a full subsidy (essentially Medicaid). If we were making the same amount of money and each filed as single and one of us with the baby we would get a less expensive rate overall than if we filed as a family of three. 

So here is the question: if you were in the position where the law benefitted your family, would you have any ethical issues accepting the reduced cost of healthcare/accepting Medicaid? OR Have we dealt with enough, and if one law finally fall in our favor we should take advantage of it even if it means acknowledging yet again that our marriages are still "less-than" our straight counter parts?

I don't know how to make a clicky poll...so feel free to discuss :)

Re: What are your thoughts?

  • C and I make the exact same salary - well, not *exact* but we're close - a couple hundred dollar difference between the two of us.  Getting married would not be financially beneficial at all, especially with a baby.  We wouldn't be able to deduct nearly as much with childcare, we'd suffer the marriage penalty, and C could take a hefty deduction from second-parent adoption.  If we married we'd owe thousands more in taxes.  And C wouldn't be able to deduct our second-parent adoption from taxes.  Romantically and socially, I really want to get married.  Financially, I do not.

    I do struggle with this still.  If we were married I could call C my wife and I feel like we'd be treated better in health emergencies.  Like if one of our kids got really sick and had to go to the emergency room then we could say we were married and go together.  C just wants to say that we're sisters so they won't question our relationship.  I guess if we don't get married that may be the best thing to do.

    My straight friends don't even think about it.  When I talk about all this stuff with them they go all cross-eyed on me and stop listening.  They're all SAHMs so they don't get penalized like we would.  And my working friends have enough disparity between their incomes that it doesn't penalize them at all either.  But since C and I are so close we'd really get spanked for getting married.  It totally sucks.

    And yes, @Mamosey, I do believe hetero non-married couples with children get the loophole, too.

  • If the state doesn't recognize the marriage, then it's their problem. I had a baby in late December and even though my partner is 100% his parent too, you bet I had no problem being viewed as a "single mom" for tax purposes. That's one of the consequences to discriminatory government policy.
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  • @Valeriegp, exactly!  The same angry old bastards who tell us we're going to Hell for living a deviant lifestyle, accuse us of pedophilia, and vote to keep us from being fully included in society are the same miserly swine who cry "MY TAX DOLLARS!" every time the government does something they don't like.

    I'm more than happy to use "their" tax dollars (despite the fact that I've been paying into the system for years myself) to get deductions for my gay family as a single mother.

  • Mamosey said:
    Are hetero non-married couples with children eligible for the same loophole?
    Yep- anyone who is not considered married in their state (regardless of children) are required to qualify at single. The weird thing with us is- we can receive Federal benefits like being able to file Married/Jointly by being married in any state but then receive state benefits because our state doesn't recognize our marriage. It is a little different that choosing not to marry to take advantage of the financial benefits. 

    That being said, if we lived in a state where we were required to apply as single...we would take that Medicaid benefit in a heart beat. Insurance is expensive, and we have been bent over by the government in enough other ways! 
  • I do struggle with this still.  If we were married I could call C my wife and I feel like we'd be treated better in health emergencies.  Like if one of our kids got really sick and had to go to the emergency room then we could say we were married and go together.  C just wants to say that we're sisters so they won't question our relationship.  I guess if we don't get married that may be the best thing to do.

    Part of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) created a ruling for the Center for Medicare/Medicaid Spending that essentially says that if a hospital accepts money from Medicare or Medicaid (which almost all do) then they are required to offer an inclusive visitation policy which allows the patient to choose who can visit them...regardless of family relationship. 

    That being said- you are left to the ignorance of your own hospital to consistently execute on this ruling, and the more conservative your area the more challenging it may be. I just read a case about a family who was in Florida on vacation, the one partner ended up dying in the hospital and her wife and kids couldn't visit her because the hospital/nurses refused to recognize them as family. The family ended up winning the law suit, but I could not imagine...

    Moral of the story: if you are in a medical emergency/visitation situation: know your rights and be OBNOXIOUS about it.  If you are worried about it...print this: cms ruling and keep it with your copy of marriage license/children's birth certificate/advance directives that we feel the need to carry around to prove we are real families. 
  • I do struggle with this still.  If we were married I could call C my wife and I feel like we'd be treated better in health emergencies.  Like if one of our kids got really sick and had to go to the emergency room then we could say we were married and go together.  C just wants to say that we're sisters so they won't question our relationship.  I guess if we don't get married that may be the best thing to do.

    Part of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) created a ruling for the Center for Medicare/Medicaid Spending that essentially says that if a hospital accepts money from Medicare or Medicaid (which almost all do) then they are required to offer an inclusive visitation policy which allows the patient to choose who can visit them...regardless of family relationship. 

    That being said- you are left to the ignorance of your own hospital to consistently execute on this ruling, and the more conservative your area the more challenging it may be. I just read a case about a family who was in Florida on vacation, the one partner ended up dying in the hospital and her wife and kids couldn't visit her because the hospital/nurses refused to recognize them as family. The family ended up winning the law suit, but I could not imagine...

    Moral of the story: if you are in a medical emergency/visitation situation: know your rights and be OBNOXIOUS about it.  If you are worried about it...print this: cms ruling and keep it with your copy of marriage license/children's birth certificate/advance directives that we feel the need to carry around to prove we are real families. 
    There is no amount of money one could give me that would right a wrong that is so profound.  I am terrified of something like that happening while we're on vacation, too.  Thanks for the link, I'll definitely print that out to keep it with our records!
  • @wishiwaspreggo Yeah the case was crazy! And part of the reason this paper has taken so damn long to write. I keep finding these insane cases, then getting pissed off, then crying, then quitting. Maybe I should have picked a topic I wasn't so close too. 
  • I can imagine!  Absolutely awful.  I don't have the stomach to read those kinds of stories over and over again...
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