Friday, November 14, 2008

What is the Link Between Healthcare Providers and Proposition 8 Supporters?

While looking at the list of Top Proposition 8 supporters, one professional field keeps coming up. Healthcare. Look at the list here. Why is this? Is this just a career field that has a lot of conservative people in it or something else?
Is the healthcare industry trying to keep down costs by keeping the definition of marriage as narrow as possible?

According the Human Rights Campaign, the worry is baseless.
"In short, extending marriage to same-sex couples will have a negligible impact on the cost of providing employee benefits. In fact, because same-sex couples make up a small percentage of the U.S. population, the cost of allowing same-sex couples to marry will be no greater for employers than the costs caused by fluctuations in the U.S. heterosexual marriage rates."

But the fear remains. According the Pew Forum on Gay Marriage, only one percent of those polled consider economic reasons for opposing gay marriage. Still the concern remains, when it comes to healthcare professionals, they may more carefully consider economic reasons because the impact will directly affect their profession.

A person is pro or anti same-sex marriage is largely indicated by political affliation and if a person believes that homosexuality is biologically determined or not. So why so many healthcare professionals in the anti category? Isn't healthcare a science driven profession and therefore wouldn't healthcare professionals be more likely to be sympathetic to same-sex marriage?

Interestingly enough, no. Healthcare is being led by MBAs vs. MDs, so because healthcare has changed from a service to a business, it is easy to see how determining factor is the bottomline and not biology-- or even justice for that matter. The fight for same-sex marriage is reflecting the struggle of American healthcare. Profits vs. People.

Will human concern trump profitabilty? Not today, as for the future, we'll see.

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