News Break
04/28/2004 13:19:50 EST Firms Cutting Domestic-Partner Benefits
By KEN MAGUIRE
Associated Press Writer
BOSTON - Now that it is about to be legal for same-sex couples to marry, some Massachusetts employers are eliminating domestic-partner benefits for gay workers, requiring them to say "I do" if they want to keep their partners on their insurance.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, one of the state's largest employers, will drop domestic-partner benefits for Massachusetts residents at the end of this year, as will Babson College.
"The original reason for domestic-partner benefits was to recognize that same-sex couples could not marry," Beth Israel spokesman Jerry Berger said. "Now that they can, they are essentially on the same footing as heterosexual couples."
Employers are not legally required to offer such benefits. Those that do typically require employees and their partner to sign paperwork, in some cases an affidavit, stating that they live together and are financially interdependent.
About 40 of the hospital's 5,000 employees receive domestic-partner benefits, which provide health, dental and life insurance beneficiary coverage to the worker's partner. They will have until Dec. 31, the end of the next benefits enrollment period, to produce a marriage certificate if they want to keep their partners covered.
On May 17, gay couples can start getting married in Massachusetts under a ruling issued by the state's highest court.
Joanne Ayoub, director of organizational development at Beth Israel, has received benefits for her partner, RoseAnne Joaquin, for the past five years. They have been together for 14 years and plan to get married, but may speed the process as a result of the Dec. 31 deadline.
"We're probably doing that a couple of months sooner than we planned," said Ayoub, 45, who nonetheless supports the hospital's decision. "The decision is sound, it's right. Having a grace period is quite generous."
Babson College in Wellesley has identical plans. Employees with domestic-partner benefits will lose them unless they get married by the end of the year, and all new hires must be married to get spousal benefits.
"Everyone now has equal access to getting married," said Frank Aubuchon, Babson's associate vice president and director of personnel. "Absent changing this, we would then be discriminating against heterosexual couples who live together but who are not married."
Babson and Beth Israel, most of whose workers live in Massachusetts, will continue to offer domestic-partner benefits to employees in same-sex relationships who live outside Massachusetts. Both currently offer the benefits to same-sex couples only, and have done so for the past decade.
Aubuchon estimated it costs Babson an extra $2,000 to add a partner to an employee's health plan. He said about 10 workers currently get domestic-partner benefits.
Arline Isaacson, co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay & Lesbian Political Caucus,said employers may be acting too soon. A move is under way in the Legislature to amend the constitution to ban same-sex marriages and allow for civil unions, a process that will take at least 2 1/2 years.
"I would urge employers to not make those changes until we get past November 2006, or they might unintentionally end up harming their employees," Isaacson said.
