Ensure insurance benefits for all

Lack of health insurance benefits for domestic partners prompted Rob Carpick, an associate professor of engineering, to end his six-and-a-half year tenure in nanotechnology research at UW-Madison for a position that provides such benefits at the University of Pennsylvania. According to UW's domestic partner qualifications, Carpick's partner Carlos Chan, whom he married in Canada in 2003, is recognized because of the ""legal registration of a domestic partner relationship with a ... foreign government"" and the couple's commitment to ""share the same residence ... indefinitely,"" amongst other criteria. Though Carpick has chosen to stand by his man, this is not solely an issue of discrimination of homosexuals. Under current UW statutes, domestic partners are not covered under the State Group Health Insurance. Additionally, domestic partners are not covered for dental and excess medical insurance, or long term care insurance. Though some may see Carpick's move from UW as just another act in the gay rights drama, this unfair policy applies to heterosexual couples as well. Therefore, more than 10 percent of society's domestic partner couples are affected. In the past few years, domestic partner benefits have been broadened to include group life insurance, dental insurance and accidental death and dismemberment insurance. Though the university has made some progress in allowing more benefits for domestic partners, the university must act in a more aggressively progressive manner. Carpick is the most recent researcher lost due to UW's antiquated policy —one of a series in an ongoing trend. The loss of promising researchers on these grounds signals a need for the UW System to follow the trail paved nearly a decade ago by other Big Ten institutions that provide health insurance benefits for domestic partners.