Think tank echoes AtMP’s health reform proposals
This year AtMP really stepped up its efforts to raise awareness about the impact of marital status on access to health care. For example, we submitted comments to the Senate Finance Committee in May, and started distributing fact sheets to a variety of health care reform advocates in July. It’s a daunting task: there are so many complicated aspects of health care, and so many organizations working on it. Just when I started to get discouraged, we achieved a dramatic success!
The Center for America Progress, a progressive think tank, incorporated several of AtMP’s policy recommendations at the end of its analysis about how the House of Representatives’ health reform package will help unmarried women.
While not on the table in the current debate, some additional policy proposals that would address the discrimination in health insurance coverage based on marital status include:
- Plus-one and/or household plans. Encourage or require employers and exchanges to treat two adults the same regardless of relation or marital status, which would allow unmarried women to support their loved ones just as married partners do.
- Domestic partners are provided coverage at many firms, but these should be defined broadly as same-sex or opposite-sex partners. Similarly, the definition of “family” should not be limited to an individual plus his/her spouse and dependents, but should include unmarried interdependent adults, such as domestic partners.
- COBRA. Employers are currently not required to provide COBRA continuing coverage to domestic partners or other adult nonspouses when the primary insured loses his or her job. Rather, all persons who were previously eligible under an employer’s plan should continue to be eligible under COBRA.
- Divorce and separation. Changes in marital status should not result in automatic loss of insurance for anyone covered as a dependent, unless both primary and dependent parties agree.
