Blue Cross Blue Shield Michigan Begins To Offer Domestic Partner Coverage to Small Businesses
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, the state's largest health insurer, has begun offering its small business customers the option of extending health coverage to domestic partners of gay and lesbian employees, the Detroit News reports. Under the new offering, domestic partners could receive health insurance benefits that "mirror" those offered to married couples if they register with Affirmations Gay & Lesbian Community Center, which requires documentation proving that a couple is in a committed relationship before issuing Certificates of Domestic Partnership, the News reports. BCBS of Michigan already provides domestic partner benefits to its large clients, including Ford and General Motors. Other insurers, such as Health Alliance Plan and M-Care, already provide such benefits to their small business customers. However, BCBS of Michigan, which covers an estimated 50,000 businesses with fewer than 99 employees, is "by far the largest" insurer in the state to extend domestic partner benefits to small business customers, according to gay advocates, the News reports. Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, said that adding gays' and lesbians' domestic partners to the health insurance pool will "have the inevitable consequence of driving up insurance costs for everyone" because the group "engages in high-risk behavior" and is "stricken with serious, life-threatening diseases that are very expensive to treat." According to Kathy Elston, vice president of marketing and sales at BCBS of Michigan, the company's researchers analyzed four years of records for its large customers that offer domestic partner benefits and determined that providing such coverage costs the same as benefits for heterosexual couples and did not increase costs for existing subscribers (Lee, Detroit News, 2/2).
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