The same-sex partners of gay and lesbian federal workers may start applying for long term health care insurance starting July 1, the Office of Personnel Management said
Tuesday.
President Obama signed a memo last June extending some benefits to the same sex partners
of federal workers, including access to the government’s Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program.
On Tuesday OPM essentially followed through on that memo by broadening
the definition of relatives eligible for the insurance program to
include same-sex domestic partners of eligible federal workers, U.S. Postal Service workers and federal
annuitants.
But OPM will not extend access to the insurance program to opposite-sex domestic partners, because they can obtain the insurance
through marriage, “an option not currently available to same-sex
domestic partners,” the agency
wrote in Tuesday’s Federal Register.
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