Law Changes Health Coverage Benefits

A small provision of the 1986 Budget Reconciliation Act, which was signed into federal law on April 7 and becomes effective July 1, will result in health insurance coverage for millions of women, the Older Women’s League has announced. The new law allows middle-aged or older people to retain group health insurance coverage provided by their spouses’ employers for up to three years after divorce or the death or retirement of a spouse.

League president Lou Glasse said the law is “a major victory for mid-life and older women. Its passage will prevent millions more women from suddenly losing their health insurance at a difficult and vulnerable period of their lives.” According to OWL, about 5 million women between the ages of 40 and 65 currently have no health insurance. Many of these may be women who lost their coverage--provided by their husbands’ employers--due to divorce or widowhood.

The issue was of particular importance to OWL co-founder Tish Sommers, who died last October shortly after the bill was first introduced in the Senate. Sommers is perhaps best known for coining the phrase “displaced homemaker,” and for co-founding the Displaced Homemakers’ Center in Oakland and later the Older Women’s League. The Oakland center was the nation’s first such agency set up to deal with the problems of older women who, due to divorce or widowhood, were faced with having to support themselves after devoting most of their adult lives to rearing children and keeping house.

Sommers had experienced many of the same problems as the women she helped, and one of them was that as a divorced woman in her 60s she was denied health insurance because of her medical history. Passage of a law that would require a period of continuation of the insurance coverage divorced or widowed women had through their husbands became one of the key national issues OWL chose to pursue when it was founded in 1980.

Laying the Foundation

OWL began its campaign in the states, and since 1981 has succeeded in helping to get insurance continuation laws passed in seven states: Oregon, Louisiana, Kansas, Vermont, Missouri, Texas and Illinois. These laws vary widely. For example, Missouri’s law requires group insurance to continue for three months for a widow or divorced spouse. Texas required continuation for one year, Oregon for six months. Louisiana required continued coverage for up to 15 years for widows over 50. Vermont’s law applied to widows only. It was Sommers’ hope that if enough states enacted legislation, the federal law would follow, OWL co-founder Laurie Shields said in OWL’s announcement of the law.

The new federal law provides that spouses and dependent children, by paying the premiums, may continue to be part of their group insurance plans for up to three years. It also provides continuation for up to 18 months for unemployed workers and their families. It applies to the health plans of most private employers as well as state and local governments.

The law will not help women who have already lost their insurance, but is “a lifesaver for those who would be dropped after July 1,” Glasse said--of such importance, that “women who are now involved in a divorce would be well-advised to consider postponing the final decree until after this new law takes effect.”

A number of national groups supported passage of the law, Glasse said, particularly the Women’s Equity Action League and the American Assn. of Retired Persons.

A free fact sheet on the new law is available by sending a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Insurance Continuation, OWL, 1325 G Street, N.W., Lower Level, Washington, D.C. 20005.