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发帖数: 19713 | 1 Gay federal employees will be able to cover the children of their same-sex
partners under the federal health insurance plan once a proposed rule
published Friday by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is enacted.
Under the proposed regulation, children will be eligible for coverage if a
parent is in a domestic same-sex relationship with a federal employee who
receives coverage through federal programs. These children would be eligible
for coverage — both under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program
and the Federal Employees Dental & Vision Program — regardless of whether
or not they’ve been legally adopted by the federal employee.
The same rule also brings federal health program rules into compliance with
the Affordable Care Act, which stipulates insurers providing dependent
coverage extend that coverage to the children of individuals they insure
until the age of 26.
Emily Hecht-McGowan, the Family Equality Council’s public policy director,
said the proposed rule is important because many LGBT families throughout
the country live in states without legal protections.
“Most of the two million children raised by LGBT parents live in states
where their parents cannot marry, cannot secure legal ties to their own kids
and cannot get their children covered under a health insurance plan,”
Hecht-McGowan said. “This rule change means that federal workers can now be
assured that a high fever, broken arm or debilitating illness won’t
jeopardize their child’s health or their family’s finances.”
Now that the rule has been proposed, OPM will take public comment on its
implementation, which must be received by the agency within 60 days. The
rule would be made final at some later time, but there’s no required or
definitive timeline for publication of the final rule. Typically regulations
become effective 30 days after they’re issued.
Right now, federal employees can obtain coverage for the children of their
same-sex partners if he or she adopts their partner’s children. But
adoption isn’t available to same-sex couples everywhere: only in 18 states
and D.C. is second-parent adoption available statewide.
Brian Moulton, legal director for the Human Rights Campaign, said the
proposed rule change is important because of this limited availability of
second-parent adoption.
“In the absence of fair adoption laws, thousands of same-sex parents across
the country remain legal strangers to the children they have raised from
birth,” Moulton said. “By issuing this proposed rule, OPM will ensure that
fewer children of federal workers will be denied health care coverage
simply because their parents are a same-sex couple.”
According to the proposed rule, the change is being made because of a
memorandum that President Obama issued on domestic partner benefits. On June
17, 2009, Obama extended limited partner benefits to gay federal employees
and called on U.S. agencies to determine additional benefits could be
extended. The results of that review were compiled by OPM and sent to the
White House as recommendations. A subsequent memo from Obama on June 2, 2010
instructed agencies to implement them.
But since the time OPM made its recommendations, the agency determined that
the definition of the term “stepchild” in U.S. code dealing with federal
employees could be interpreted as a child of a same-sex partner of a federal
employee.
“This regulatory action is necessary to implement fully the Presidential
Memoranda cited above and is consistent with OPM’s policy determination
that extension of coverage is appropriate,” the proposed rule says. “
Accordingly, this proposed rule extends FEHB and FEDVIP coverage to children
of same-sex domestic partners of enrolled employees and annuitants.”
The proposed rule isn’t expected to have a significant economic impact
because it only adds additional groups to the list of groups eligible for
coverage under the federal health care system.
As part of the proposed rule change, federal health program regulations
would be amended so that if a federal employee doesn’t establish that
insuring their partner’s child qualifies for favorable tax treatment under
applicable tax laws, the employee can be taxed on the fair market value of
the coverage. As part of the process for seeking comments, OPM is
specifically seeking input on how the fair market value might be calculated
for different plans, including, for example, a high deductible health plan
with a health reimbursement arrangement.
The proposed rule change means the children of same-sex partners of federal
employees would have access to benefits unavailable to the same-sex partners
themselves. The Obama administration has said it cannot extend major
benefits — health and pension benefits — to the same-sex partners of
federal employees because of the Defense of Marriage Act. Legislation that
would extend those benefits, called the Domestic Partnership Benefits &
Obligations Act, was reported out of the Senate committee of jurisdiction in
May, but hasn’t yet come to a floor vote. |
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