Gay Marriage Bans Lead to Lack of Health Insurance

A week or so ago I mentioned that Optima Health, one of the large local health insurance carriers, doesn't allow domestic partners to be added to one's coverage under its small business group plans - a category that likely covers thousands of local business - even though Virginia law belatedly now allows such coverage. It's yet another example of this country's f*cked up health care system. It is also another example of the consequences of religious based bigotry against LGBT Americans both by the government and private corporations like Optima Health and its parent company Sentara Health Care Systems. If I had a sham marriage with a woman, I'd have not problem giving her coverage. In the case of a same sex couple, with Optima Health you're SOL. My experience is not unique as demonstrated by a new study of Californians by Lambda Legal and the Department of Health Services at UCLA. Here are highlights of the findings via 365gay.com and Health Affairs:
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Central to the debate on benefit equality are factors affecting who has access to dependent employer-sponsored health insurance. Employees who are legally and heterosexually married have an advantage over those in registered or nonregistered domestic partnerships, in civil unions, or legally married to a same-sex spouse in obtaining insurance from employers that covers dependents. This happens in two ways.
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Advantages For The Legally, Heterosexually Married First, many employers do not offer coverage for an employee’s unmarried domestic partner, civil-union spouse, or legal same-sex spouse, regardless of state laws calling for equal insurance treatment of same-sex partners. And when employers do offer same-sex partner/spousal coverage, there are often unequal eligibility rules, such as requiring cohabitation of varying duration and proof of financial entwinement. Heterosexual married couples do not face such scrutiny and are free to live in separate households should career or other needs require it.
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Second, in contrast to benefits acquired through heterosexual marriage, the federal and most state governments treat dependent benefits for domestic partners, civil-union spouses, and same-sex spouses as taxable earned income. This means that dependent coverage for same-sex partners is not equivalent in price to insurance provided for heterosexual married partners. Even in states with equal marriage laws or civil union/domestic partner protection, the Defense of Marriage Act (DoMA) of 1996 keeps the federal government from recognizing same-sex couples’ marriages. Thus, all same-sex couples face a federal income tax burden on dependent employer-sponsored health coverage, and sometimes a state income tax burden as well, regardless of their marital or partnership status under state law.
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The research shows that the exclusion of same-sex couples from civil marriages and the lack of insurance equity in domestic partnerships “contribute to unequal access to health coverage, with the probable result that more health spending is pushed onto these individuals and onto the public.”
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When an employer’s insurance plan does not cover the employee’s same-sex partner, that partner is often left uninsured. In these cases, the partners are dependent on public insurance options, shifting the cost of their insurance to taxpayers.
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“The data from over 100,000 Californians is the first to quantify dependent coverage disparities by sexual orientation,” said Professor Ninez A. Ponce, the principal UCLA co-author. “By not allowing lesbian and gay couples to marry, and not respecting their status when they are married, government invites the private sector to pass the costs of discrimination onto families and communities.”
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I guess the only silver lining is the fact that the Christianists who oppose same sex marriage are too stupid to figure out that they are unknowingly causing themselves to have to indirectly pay for health care costs of uninsured gays. Obviously, it serves the bastards right.