OPM’s Berry: Justice Dept. opinion ties my hands on gay spouses’ health benefits
May 9th, 2012 | Pay & Benefits | Posted by Stephen Losey
Last week we reported that even though lesbian federal employee Karen Golinski won health coverage for her wife — courtesy of a February court ruling — the Office of Personnel Management is still instructing federal agencies to deny the same coverage to all other gay and lesbian feds’ spouses.
Today I asked OPM Director John Berry how his agency can legally extend Federal Employees Health Benefits Program benefits to only one couple, and treat thousands more differently. He said, basically, that the Justice Department’s legal opinion on the Golinski ruling has tied OPM’s hands:
As someone who’s openly gay and has a partner that would love to join the FEHBP program, and I would love to have him be able to join the FEHBP program, because it’s a great program. I look forward to this issue resolving itself, personally. So you can rest assured, I’m watching this issue closely. That being said, it’s the Justice Department that gets to decide what a court ruling allows us to do. And the Justice Department has defined that, how this court ruling, because of the jurisdiction of the court and the direction of the court, it only applies to this one person. That’s what I’ve been told.
I have to do what the Justice Department tells me to do. As a sworn officer, upholding the Constitution, I’m enforcing what the Justice Department’s told me.
Berry pledged to keep pushing to extend health care benefits to gay and lesbian feds’ same-sex partners, and said he hopes Congress will pass a bill granting those rights:
My hope, at the end of the day, is that Congress can act. We’ve had wonderful bipartisan support on this. Sen. [Susan] Collins [R-Maine] has been as strong an advocate as Sen. [Joe] Lieberman [I-Conn.] and Sen. [Daniel] Akaka [D-Hawaii] in the Senate, and we’ve got the same in the House. I think there’s a shot that, even legislatively, we can move forward on this, is my hope. Otherwise, we’ll wait and see what the Justice Department allows us to do, responding to appropriate court action.
However, Senate support for extending same-sex benefits isn’t as bipartisan as Berry suggested. Collins remains the only Republican co-sponsor of S 1910, and no Republicans have signed on to the House version, HR 3485. And with House Republicans dead-set against broadening federal employees’ benefits — gay or straight — I don’t see how same-sex health benefits can possibly pass Congress.
Berry’s comments came a few hours before news broke that President Obama now backs gay marriage.
Tags: FEHBP, gay rights, John Berry, same-sex benefits
OPM: FEHBP must cover lesbian fed’s wife, but no other same-sex spouses
May 3rd, 2012 | Pay & Benefits | Posted by Stephen Losey
Karen Golinski, a lesbian federal employee, won a major court victory in February when a federal judge ruled that the government had to extend health benefits to her same-sex wife. But other gay and lesbian feds won’t be able to benefit from Golinski’s victory at this time.
The Office of Personnel Management in March ordered Blue Cross Blue Shield to cover Golinski’s wife, Amy Cunninghis. But today, OPM sent a notice out on its listserv that said the Golinski ruling does not apply to anyone else.
“OPM has been directed by the Department of Justice to continue applying the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to all other situations,” OPM said. “Therefore, if you receive a request to enroll a same-sex spouse, you are still precluded by DOMA from processing the enrollment request or sending it to the [Federal Employees Health Benefits] Plan.”
OPM has been in an awkward position for some time regarding health benefits for same-sex spouses. OPM Director John Berry is gay, and has repeatedly said he thinks gay and lesbian feds’ spouses should be covered. But Section 3 of DOMA prevents the government from legally recognizing same-sex marriages, which bars gay feds’ husbands and wives from FEHBP. The Justice Department last year said it believes DOMA is unconstitutional and it would no longer defend the law. And last July, Justice backed Golinski’s case in a brief that amounted to a mea culpa for the government’s “significant and regrettable” history of persecuting gay and lesbian employees. (Go back and read that blog, and this one for some background on how gay and lesbian feds were treated. It’s pretty startling.)
But even though the Obama administration may want to extend health care to gay and lesbian feds’ spouses, it now seems pretty clear that won’t happen until DOMA is repealed or struck down.
Health care premiums coming tomorrow
September 26th, 2011 | Pay & Benefits | Posted by Stephen Losey
Here’s a heads up for all of our readers: Tomorrow morning, the Office of Personnel Management is planning to unveil next year’s premiums for the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Check back in at FederalTimes.com sometime after 11 a.m. Tuesday for the news on how your health care costs will change in 2012.
White House: Streamline prescription drug contracting
September 19th, 2011 | Pay & Benefits | Posted by Stephen Losey
The White House has also tucked a proposal into its $3 trillion deficit reduction proposal to overhaul how the government buys prescription drugs for the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. On page 43 of its report, the administration calls for allowing the Office of Personnel Management to contract directly with pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, for prescription drugs. PBMs are companies that negotiate prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies on behalf of FEHBP’s insurance providers. But PBMs are not considered subcontractors, and as a result, OPM has little oversight of them and cannot be sure they pass on rebates (of as much as 50 percent of the drugs’ retail cost) to FEHBP enrollees.
The White House says the current “fragmented strategy [using PBMs] does not take full advantage of the combined purchasing power of the nearly eight million enrollees in the FEHB program.” It projects the move would save $1.6 billion over a decade.
Tags: deficit reduction, FEHBP, Office of Personnel Management, prescription drugs
Justice lays out government’s ‘significant and regrettable’ history of anti-gay bias
July 5th, 2011 | Pay & Benefits | Posted by Stephen Losey
The Justice Department on Friday filed a brief siding with a lesbian federal employee who is suing to get health insurance for her wife, and arguing that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.
Plaintiff Karen Golinski is an appeals court attorney in California, who legally married her wife in August 2008 and wants her to be covered by the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. However, since DOMA’s Section 3 defines marriage as between one man and one woman, the federal government is banned from extending full health benefits to same-sex spouses and partners, though the Obama administration and Office of Personnel Management want to change that.
In addition to backing Golinski’s suit and opposing a motion by the House’s Bipartisan Legal Defense Group to dismiss it, Justice’s brief also serves as a mea culpa for the way the government has treated gay and lesbian employees over the last six decades. “The federal government has played a significant and regrettable role in the history of discrimination against gay and lesbian individuals,” Justice said.
- In 1950, a Senate subcommittee began investigating the government’s employment “of homosexuals and other sexual perverts,” and found that about 1,700 job-seekers were denied employment because of a record of homosexuality “or other sex perversion.”
- President Eisenhower issued an executive order in 1953 that officially deemed sexual perversion as grounds for investigation and possible dismissal from federal service, throughout the entire federal government. This effectively required all gay people to be fired from their federal jobs, Justice said.
- Agencies began enforcing those rules zealously, Justice said. The State Department had investigators interrogate male applicants to uncover “any effeminate tendencies or mannerisms,” used polygraphs on people who denied allegations they were gay, and sent inspectors around the world to uncover homosexuals in State’s ranks.
- The FBI had state and local police officers supply arrest records on “morals charges” — even if someone was never convicted — as well as data on gay bars and other gay hangouts, and press articles on the gay subculture.
- And the U.S. Postal Service helped the FBI by setting up a watch list of men who subscribed to bodybuilding magazines or exchanged letters with suspected gay men. Once the Postal Service concluded someone was gay, it would track his mail to uncover more suspected gay men.
This all continued until 1975, when the Civil Service Commission — OPM’s predecessor — officially prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation. “The end result was thousands of men and women forced from their federal jobs based on the suspicion they were gay or lesbian,” Justice wrote.
Metro Weekly, the gay-oriented Washington newspaper that posted the Golinski brief online, called the brief “historic.” “The brief … is the single-most persuasive legal argument ever advanced by the United States government in support of equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people,” Metro Weekly wrote.
Justice in February announced it had decided Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional, and would no longer defend it. The House’s Bipartisan Legal Defense Group soon took up DOMA’s defense, and in June asked the U.S. District Court in California’s northern district to dismiss Golinski’s case.
Tags: FEHBP, gay rights
OPM wants lower copays, deductibles for wellness activities
March 25th, 2011 | Pay & Benefits | Posted by Stephen Losey
The Office of Personnel Management today asked health insurers to put their money where their mouth is on offering programs to foster health and wellness.
In today’s annual call letter spelling out its priorities, OPM encouraged insurers to offer hard benefits — such as reduced copayments or deductibles — to federal employees if they complete a health risk assessment, follow programs to manage diseases such as diabetes, or engage in other wellness activities. OPM also said it expects insurers to offer programs and cover services that seek to reduce obesity in both children and adults.
As OPM Director John Berry hinted at yesterday, the call letter also asks insurers to submit proposals to pilot test so-called “integrated health care systems.” Those systems are intended to better integrate decision making between doctors and hospitals to find the lowest-cost treatments. The call letter said that under such a system, “overall coordination of care is led by a personal physician with the patient serving as the focal point of all medical activity. These systems have the ability to manage the patient’s continuum of care across different institutional settings, including ambulatory and inpatient hospital care and possibly post-acute care.” OPM said they could lower health care costs by reducing hospital stays and emergency room visits and increasing preventive care.
OPM also expects insurers to look for ways to improve patient safety and treatment outcomes and prevent hospital readmissions, promote generic drugs and reduce pharmacy spending. Insurers are encouraged to submit proposals to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in health status and health care, increase the number of providers who can treat seniors, and offer affinity programs that can cover same-sex domestic partners. Berry said some Federal Employee Health Benefits Program insurers today cover domestic partners and gay or lesbian spouses under affinity programs, but enrollees have to pay the entire premium.
The call letter can be read here.
Tags: FEHBP
Obama administration says Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional
February 23rd, 2011 | Pay & Benefits | Posted by Stephen Losey
The Justice Department today announced that it has decided Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and will no longer defend the controversial law in court.
DOMA, which forbids the federal government from legally recognizing gay or lesbian marriages, also prevents the government from extending health benefits to same-sex spouses of federal employees. Even spouses of federal employees who were legally married in states allowing same-sex marriage now can not receive health care through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, unless they are also federal employees.
DOMA also meant the surviving same-sex spouses of dead federal employees could not get survivor annuities.
The Obama administration has extended limited benefits to gay and lesbian employees’ partners and spouses over the last year and a half. But spousal health benefits has remained the most desired — and elusive — benefit for gay and lesbian feds. It remains to be seen exactly what effect President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision will have, but it could help remove the last stumbling block preventing the expansion of health benefits.
Last July, a federal judge struck Section 3 down as unconstitutional after several federal employees and retirees sued.
Complete text of Holder’s letter to Congress can be found after the jump:
Tags: Defense of Marriage Act, Eric Holder, FEHBP
Problems with FEHBP enrollment? Let us know
January 31st, 2011 | Office of Personnel Management | Posted by Stephen Losey
We’ve heard from a few readers recently who say they’re having problems with OPM’s processing of their health care enrollment requests, and are wondering if there are more issues out there. Have you experienced any difficulties with OPM and your FEHBP lately? Are your changes not going through, getting mistakenly deactivated, or anything else? What kind of service are you getting from OPM?
We’d like to hear from you. E-mail me at slosey@federaltimes.com to share your story. If you’d like to remain anonymous, that’s fine.
Tags: customer service, FEHBP, health care, what do you think?
2011 FEHBP rates: What do you think?
October 6th, 2010 | Pay & Benefits | Posted by Stephen Losey
The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program premiums will go up 7.2 percent on average next year, the Office of Personnel Management said last week. For the most popular federal plan — Blue Cross Blue Shield Standard — self-only premiums are going up 6.9 percent and self-and-family plans are going up 7.6 percent.
Also, six health care plans are dropping out of FEHBP: Louisiana’s Vantage Health Plans; Nevada’s Pacificare of Nevada; New Jersey’s AmeriHealth HMO; New York’s Community Blue; Rhode Island and Massachussetts’ BlueCHiP Coordinated Health Plan; and the multistate UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company, which included a high-deductible health plan option and a consumer-driven health plan option.
What do you think about these changes? Are you going to try to find another health plan within FEHBP to try to keep your health care costs down? Is your plan among the six not participating in FEHBP next year, and will you be forced to find another plan?
E-mail reporter Stephen Losey at slosey@federaltimes.com. If you’d prefer to talk off the record, or would like to be quoted anonymously, that’s fine.
Tags: 2011 premiums, FEHBP
Health care reform, FEHBP and you
September 10th, 2010 | Pay & Benefits | Posted by Stephen Losey
The Office of Personnel Management this afternoon released the latest Benefits Administration Letter detailing how health care reform is going to affect federal employees.
One of the bigger changes affecting Federal Employees Health Benefits Program enrollees is the extension of coverage for adult children of feds. Currently, only unmarried dependent children younger than 22 are eligible for coverage. But the health care changes will expand coverage to adult children up to age 26, as well as removing residency and dependency requirements for coverage. And there’s a few other firsts for adult children (younger than 26, of course):
- Married adult children of feds will be eligible for FEHBP coverage. However, their spouses or their own children will not be eligible for coverage.
- Adult children who are eligible for or have their own employer-provided health insurance will be able to switch to mom’s or dad’s FEHBP.
- Adult stepchildren of feds won’t need to live with the enrollee in a parent-child relationship to be eligible for coverage.
- Adult children are not required to be students or have prior or current insurance coverage to be placed on their parent’s plan.
- Foster children are also eligible until they turn 26.
- Children who cannot support themselves because of a mental or physical disability that began before they turned 26 will be eligible for continued coverage even after they pass that age.
For most feds, these changes will take effect Jan. 2, the first day of the first full pay period in 2011. OPM had been hoping to convince Congress to change the law allowing them to extend coverage earlier, but that hasn’t happened yet and the legislative schedule is tightening up fast.
How do you get your newly-eligible adult kid onto your health plan? Glad you asked. Hit the jump for the answer.
Tags: FEHBP, health care, reform