🚀 go-pugleaf

BCLP Leader wrote:
> 
> Barbara Amero wrote in message <34D7A305.D5A@dbis.ns.ca>...

[...]

> >those Insurance Companies who give the so-called
> >dependent spouse the boot after divorce!
> 
> Maybe those dependent people could get a job and pay the premiums?

Maybe you are confused?  Dependent spouse here is
referring to the spouse listed on the Insurance Plan 
as the dependent, along with dependent children if the 
couple has any. Such does not necessarily mean that the 
so-called dependent spouse does not have a "job." For e.g., 
I was listed on my ex-husbands Insurance Plan as the 
dependent spouse, but for most of the long-term marriage 
I had a "job", other than the job of homemaker. Except for 
the latter years of the marriage in which I owned and operated 
a businnes, the jobs I had in the workforce were part time. 
It would not have made financial sense for me to purchase 
individual expensive medical/dental insurance when I had 
the option of being the dependent spouse on an excellent 
group insurance plan through my ex-husbands employment. 
I'm sure you would agree.

Many women divorcing have a "job" in the workforce, often
a part-time job which does not offer such benefits as medical/
dental plans. For some women, part-time work is all they can
find. I knew one divorced woman who was working 5 part-time
jobs to make ends meet -- not enough income to pay for private
medical/dental insurance. Some married women take less demanding 
positions with a lower pay or work only part-time to spend
more time at home with the children. Didn't you know that?
These sacrifices for the family usually reduce a woman's 
ability to be financially self-sufficient, and the effect
can be long lasting. 

As for "those dependent spouses" without a job getting a job 
after marital dissolution, are you not aware that we have an
unemployment problem? If women have been full-time homemakers,
it is difficult for women to return to the workforce. Skills 
are rusty or undeveloped, senority has been lost and
opportunities have disappeared. Upon divorce women need
to be compensated for such. And Insurance Companies certainly
should not give divorced women (or men) who were the dependent
spouse on the Insurance Plan the boot.

I find your question offensive, given the numbers of people,
divorced or otherwise, who cannot find employment or employment
to adequately support them or them and their children. I know
a married man with an M.A. who has not been able to find
employment to adequately support he and his family without
some social assistance. His wife has been at home taking care
of the children, including a sick baby. As I understand, she 
has now found some part-time work.

Many single women with children have to stay on welfare
because they cannot afford to lose the benefits. I know
of a single woman with health concerns on welfare who
found a job with pay that she could exist on with the
exception of paying for needed prescriptions, etc. She
asked the powers that be if welfare would continue to
provide the health care benefits if she took the job.
The powers that be said no, so she could not take the
job.

Why would you ask such a question? I don't know if
you're a man, but men who've made posts about this
issue and others concerning divorce, seemingly want
to punish divorced women. A poster called "beergut"
erroneously automatically assumed that because I am 
divorced (long-term marriage) that I am no longer 
beneficiary of my ex-husbands life insurance. That
speaks volumes.

Barbara A. Amero