Breaking news | Dade domestic-partner benefits plan moves ahead

By MATTHEW I. PINZUR, mpinzur@MiamiHerald.com

A package of domestic-partnership benefits moved closer to passage in Miami-Dade County on Wednesday, clearing committee and advancing to the full County Commission for a vote later this month or in May.

The proposal gives domestic partners, regardless of sexual orientation, the legal right to visit each other in hospitals and jails. It would also let county employees buy health insurance coverage for their partners and partners' children.

''We're a family and we need to have that sense of security,'' said Cristina Florez, whose partner works for the county's aviation department. Florez's unborn daughter was due Monday, and she said independent insurance will be practically unavoidable when she becomes a stay-at-home mother.

The proposal defines domestic partners as unmarried adults who are at least 18, live together, are not blood relatives and consider themselves ``immediate family.''

It was approved 3-1 in the Economic Development and Human Services Committee, with Commissioners Katy Sorenson, Barbara Jordan and Dennis Moss voting for it and Javier Souto dissenting.

Moss' support suggests the bill is destined for passage; six other commissioners co-sponsored it, and Moss' vote is enough for a majority on the 13-member board.

Opponents supported an alternative, which included only blood relatives.

That bill was deferred to next month, ostensibly to let its sponsors present its merits. But that could leave it languishing in committee while the original package wins final approval. One of the alternative's sponsors, José ''Pepe'' Diaz, had sent a memo asking the committee to move both proposals to the full commission so they could be debated at the same time.

Diaz was out of town on personal business, but other backers of the blood-relative plan said it was more equitable.

''It is truly compassionate and truly inclusive,'' said Anthony Verdugo, executive director of the Christian Family Coalition. ``It does not leave anybody out.''

But the alternative could be more expensive. Unrelated domestic partners tend to be about the same age, and working-age people tend to use less medical care and therefore cost less to the county's self-run insurance.

Other local governments that provide domestic-partner coverage, including the Miami-Dade school district and cities of Miami Beach and North Miami, said their policies had no appreciable cost. Some of those have offered domestic-partner coverage for nearly a decade.

Just like married couples, domestic partners would need to pay the entire cost of the dependent's insurance.

''We have not recognized any additional cost whatsoever,'' said Scott Clark, the school district's benefits officer.

Including blood relatives opens the program to a larger group of elderly people, who use more medical services. That might force the county to increase the premiums it charges to dependents.

Unlike coverage for nonrelated partners, which has become common, county analysts could not find any government or corporation that offered such benefits to unmarried relatives.

Souto rejected the notion that expanded coverage would come cheap, and said the county cannot afford it as it prepares to cut some $200 million from its budget.

''When you don't have money, you don't throw money away,'' he said. ``You don't go to Las Vegas when you are broke.''

More than 100 people filled the normally vacant committee hearing. Few made explicit reference to social controversies of gay marriage and households -- indeed, many supporters identified themselves as heterosexuals who lived with a boyfriend or girlfriend -- but the question of morality certainly loomed.

''God doesn't cover domestic partnerships,'' said Nathaniel Wilcox, a minister at Apostolic Revival Center.

But Jordan, one of the six co-sponsors on the original package, said she did not want to sit as ''moral judge,'' and Sorenson said the plan ``is a matter of justice and equality and compassion and common sense.''

''They've been doing this in Broward and Miami Beach,'' Moss said. ''The world hasn't come to an end,'' Moss said.

Click here to read the full text of the domestic-partnership proposal.

Click here to read the full text of the alternative proposal.