Friday, April 10, 1998

Perot Systems changes insurance policy for newly-hired domestic partners

By KATIE FAIRBANK / AP Business Writer

DALLAS (AP) -- Newly-hired gays at Perot Systems Inc. will no longer be allowed to get health insurance for their partners, according to a policy instituted by Ross Perot, who has moved back into the chief executive role at the company he founded.

Perot's change in policy at the computer services provider won't affect gay employees who are already on the payroll. According to the company's human resources department, current employees will be allowed to continue insuring their same-sex partners.

Kim Mills, a spokeswoman for the Human Rights Campaign, a gay and lesbian political organization, said Thursday the decision was "totally unnecessary and mean-spirited."

"This is tantamount to ending the benefits," said Ms. Mills. "Granted they're taking care of the few employees who currently have the policies, but going forward it's over."

Perot, who is acting as interim chief executive at Perot Systems, had been in discussions with Human Rights Campaign about the health benefits.

In February, the organization contacted him by letter.

"As the executive director of the largest lesbian and gay political organization in America, I am writing to ask that you not take this step backward," wrote Elizabeth Birch. "To date, no company has rescinded domestic partner benefits once instituted."

Perot said the issue is not news.

"Do we discriminate against people who are homosexual? No we do not," he said. "These organizations are very aggressive in trying to embarrass anybody that doesn't do what they want to do. It has nothing to do with homosexuality. If we made this benefit available to everyone living together in the same apartment the cost would be through the roof."

According to a survey done last year on health insurance by accounting firm KPMG Peat Marwick, 13 percent of all U.S. employers have extended health benefits to the partners of gay workers, who are estimated to comprise anywhere from 2 percent to 10 percent of the work force.

The companies that offer domestic partner benefits include IBM, Apple Computer, Genentech, Microsoft, Borland International, Lotus Development, Bank of America, the San Francisco 49ers, Warner Bros. and Universal Studios-owner MCA Inc.

The KPMG report, a telephone survey of 1,502 companies with more than 200 workers, found health care costs for same-sex partners are roughly equal those of heterosexual couples.

Perot said equality is the issue.

"If we're going to have to (offer health benefits) with homosexuals, you'd have to do that with every single person living with a roommate," said Perot, who has developed a reputation of personally assuring that his employees and their families receive health care.

The shuffling of benefits is just one of several changes made at Perot Systems since Perot moved back to the helm last year.

He has centralized spending and contracts, cut expenses and stepped up recruiting from the military.

Perot, who ran for president in 1992 and 1996, has returned to a company that has encountered several obstacles recently: a public offering that has been repeatedly rescheduled; rapidly rising expenses which caused second-quarter earnings to fall by two-thirds last year from the period a year earlier; and three management changes in about 18 months.