By Samantha Stanton

At the end of May, I began my summer internship at the Alternatives to Marriage Project doing research on employer-sponsored insurance. During my time interning, great progress was made for gay marriage in the U.S. Suddenly, my girlfriend and I could get hitched in either California or Massachusetts and it would be recognized at home in New York. With all the great strides in the movement for marriage equality this summer, I got a little excited. I started thinking about getting married, just because I could. Granted, I was never too serious about it, but the thought crossed my mind for a moment, even though I knew these advances could prove to be short-lived come November.

As I continued my work with AtMP this summer, I soon realized that getting married would not be a good idea for me.  Marriage would cause me to lose my health insurance.

In my research I discovered that health insurance plans for dependent children over age 18 are usually contingent upon the child being unmarried. I am currently covered by my mom’s insurance plan as a dependent child. Since I turned 18, to qualify for coverage under my mom’s plan I must meet certain criteria. I must be under 23 years old, enrolled full time in an accredited college or university, and unmarried.

Of course, as my research has revealed, this is probably one of the few instances where being married is actually an impediment to getting insurance coverage. Most of the time, being unmarried will limit one’s access to health insurance. Marriage is privileged in the system because employers, insurers and federal law define “family” in narrow and heterosexist ways.

Aside from the ways that employers can leave out unmarried people by not covering domestic partners or a “plus one,” unmarried people are invalidated on a more structural level. Federal legislation, namely the Defense of Marriage Act, prevents unmarried people from securing the same rights and privileges as married people. If covered by their employer, unmarried people must pay taxes on their partner’s insurance and if they lose their insurance, the partners of unmarried people are not guaranteed continued coverage.

Being unmarried, of course, is just one of the many things that make people more unlikely to have health insurance in America. Health care in America reflects the disparities and prejudices that can be found in all other aspects of American life. People of color, working class people, LGBTQ folks and unmarried people are all at a disadvantage to receiving adequate health care. Being unmarried, however, is a direct disadvantage to health care on an institutional level.

My older cousin will lose her health insurance in the fall because she just graduated from SUNY Buffalo this past spring. I will probably lose mine as well when I graduate from Columbia next spring. Certainly, I won’t be able to afford the average health insurance plan premium of $700 and given my interests in community organizing, I’m not likely to have a job that will offer extensive health benefits. I was never really serious about getting married at the beginning of the summer, but if things don’t change, I may have to get married sometime soon if I want health insurance.

AtMP was lucky to have Samantha Stanton as an intern last summer. We appreciate all the hard work she did!