Cambridge, Mass., Equalizes Cost of Health Insurance for Gay Workers

http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/cambridge-mass-equalizes-cost-of-health-insurance-for-gay-workers/

The city of Cambridge, Mass., may be the first municipality to equalize the cost of health benefits for its gay employees, following the lead of many corporations.

Unlike married couples, employees who use domestic partner health coverage for their partners must pay taxes on the value of that coverage (unless the partner is considered a dependent). If the federal government recognized same-sex marriage, these couples could avoid the tax since it doesn’t apply to heterosexual married people. On top of that, employees can’t use pretax dollars to pay for their partner’s insurance premiums — another bonus that’s available only to opposite-sex married couples.

So after Cambridge officials were made aware of the issue through a city employee who had to pay the extra taxes, they decided to reimburse employees for the extra costs. The policy will go into effect on July 1 for nonunion employees; it will go into effect for union employees “pending collective bargaining obligations.”
“The tax implication for same-sex married couples working for the city created an unfair situation that the City Council chose to address,” David Maher, the Cambridge mayor, said in a statement. “This action is the right and fair thing to do until the federal government addresses this issue.”

An increasing number of companies have started to reimburse employees with same-sex partners who are covered by the insurance. (In fact, some organizations have even extended the policy to their employees with opposite-sex domestic partners.)

Massachusetts is one of the five states, in addition to the District of Columbia, that issues marriage licenses to same-sex couples.