Health benefits for domestic partners have quickly become a barometer of a company's gay-friendliness.
But it turns out that not every business has the option of offering them. Insurance companies tend to let only large companies purchase domestic partner plans for their employees, stranding small businesses wishing to provide equal benefits to their LGBT employees.
Some insurance companies do allow small firms to buy the coverage, including Blue Cross Blue Shield of both Michigan and Montana, but for the most part domestic partner health insurance remains out of reach.
"It's pretty much impossible to get," says Bill Warren, an NGLCC member and owner of Benefits Design Resources in Miami Beach, Fla. His company specializes in insurance for small and medium-sized businesses.
"I don't know of any insurance company that has been offering domestic partner benefits [for purchase by small businesses] right now," Warren says. "I've heard that Blue Cross is going to offer it, though I haven't seen anything in writing.
"When you get to a couple hundred employees, companies will start offering it."
Small companies at a disadvantage
"It's not an issue for large companies anymore, but may be for small ones," says Todd Solomon, an employment benefits lawyer and partner at McDermott Will & Emery in Chicago. He is also author of Domestic Partner Benefits: An Employer's Guide (Thompson Publishing Group, Washington, D.C.).
"For an employer that runs their own payroll, the cost and effort [of administering domestic partner benefits to employees] could be more burdensome," he adds.
This burden, of course, stems from the fact that most same-sex couples don't have access to civil marriage, creating a parallel universe of complex paperwork for employers who offer domestic partner benefits in their effort to attract and retain workers.
Daryl Herrschaft, director of the Workplace Project at the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C., echoes Solomon and Warren in that small businesses are "less likely" to offer domestic partner benefits.
However, Herrschaft says, there's still a lot that fair-minded employers can do, even if they can't access or afford benefits for their LGBT employees' partners.
Businesses can offer 'soft' benefits
"Small businesses are more flexible in the 'soft' benefits they offer, such as personal leave," explains Herrschaft. Because the federal Family and Medical Leave Act does not cover same-sex couples, employers can, for example, design their own policies for workers excluded from the law.
Another benefit employers can offer is health savings accounts, or HSAs. These accounts, created under the Medicare reform law signed by President Bush in 2003, allow employees to save a set amount per year, exempt from income tax, that can only be used for medical expenses.
HSAs are designed to work with a "high deductible health plan," which is exactly what it sounds like: health insurance with high deductibles. Critics assail these plans as being for the "wealthy and the well," but, as Herrschaft notes, "at least you have insurance if anything happens."
And in our current health care system, imperfect as it is for all families, that might be the overriding sentiment.
For Bill Warren, the insurance broker, it's not domestic partner benefits that pose a financial challenge to small businesses.
"The elephant in the room isn't domestic partner benefits—it's the rising cost of health care overall," he said.
That's a concern that every worker and employer shares. But even if small business owners aren't able to offer the level of benefits they'd like, with a little research and creative thinking they can still meet their LGBT workers halfway—or more.
