avi@hogpd.UUCP (07/12/83)
This is a response to an article by Pat Collins (hplabsb!pc) about the Supreme Court rulings on "discrimination" in pension plans. After reading two other rebuttals to her views, I still find something to add. She claims that the court was correct in decreeing that women and men should pay the same amount in pension deductions - and receive the same amount after they retire. I feel "sorry" for women who have to pay more for pension coverage or receive smaller pensions. However, we are not dealing with "charity" here. The government may choose to distribute charity, but private companies and insurance carriers can not. Why should they hire/insure women if they will be MUCH more expensive in the long run. Biological life spans are a fact of life. If the average woman lives about six years more than the average man, then she lives almost twice as long after a retirement age of 65. That is a very significant difference! In addition, women often get "preference" based on similar sadistics. Women get charged less for life-insurance policies because they will have to wait longer to collect. Is that any "fairer"? What does fairness have to do with anything? The insurance company needs to make a similar profit on any group it insures. What about the lower rates for automobile insurance for some categories - such as women, married people, people over 25, people with no traffic tickets. Is this fair to an unmarried 17 year-old male with three speeding tickets. New Jersey has made the mistake of forcing insurance companies to insure everybody - regardless of risk factors. I am not sure of the details (being rather new here) but this has led to strange conditions. As recently discussed on the net, companies like GEICO have just decided to leave NJ. I had to get insured through some sort of "assigned risk pool". Legislation of this sort is rarely the answer. I do not want to subsidize people who drink and drive. Let them pay an amount commensurate with the risks they are taking. I have already flamed in net.flame about subsidizing the health problems that smokers bring on to themselves. I insist that smokers have higher insurance rates - based on readily available statistics. I have often administered tests to people to determine their expected "life expectancy". With appropriate counseling - and modification of their habits - they can dramatically increase their life expectancy. Some insurance companies use such tests (often computerized) to set their life-insurance rates. As long as the numbers are "accurate", whats wrong with that? How would most women feel if the Supreme Court "decreed" that the retirement age for women (only) should be raised to 70 -- to equalize the average number of years you could stay retired. Wouldn't this also make us equal? How about cutting everybodys retirement income after 7 years because they have lived past the average? All of these options sound equally silly. Insurance is - and should be - based on reasonably arrived at statistics. If my car is more likely to be stolen when I park on a "bad" street in Newark, then I should pay for that risk. Don't call it discrimination. Call it reality. This does not mean that we should not be trying to "improve" some conditions. It means that we should focus on those inequities that can be changed. Otherwise, we might have to spend billions on research that would selectively investigate methods of increasing the masculine life-span. I honestly don't believe that this court decision was a victory for women. Women do not gain by this type of reverse discrimination. I would appreciate it if people would point out any inadvertent errors I included. Avi Gross hogpd!avi P.S. With my unusual first name, I have had my share of invitations to join womens groups -- such as the Wisconsin Womens Medical Student Association and Womens Affirmative Action meetings at Bell Laboratories. Needless to say, I turn such invitations down - because I doubt that they really want me to join.