W. Hollywood Will Insure Partners of Single Employees

In an arrangement that is among the first of its kind in the nation, West Hollywood this week began offering medical insurance coverage to unmarried partners of city employees, including gays and lesbians.

Officials said that only about a dozen people initially will be eligible for the coverage, all of them partners of city employees whose relationships are legally recognized under West Hollywood’s domestic partnership ordinance. The ordinance, enacted in 1985, grants unmarried couples the right to register their relationships with the city. In four years, more than 200 couples--most of them gay--have registered.

Until now, however, the measure has offered few tangible benefits.

“It’s a small start, but you’ve got to start somewhere,” Assistant City Manager Jeri Chenelle said of the city’s decision to provide the medical coverage on its own after more than a dozen insurance companies refused.

Basic Coverage

West Hollywood, where an estimated 35% of the 37,000 residents are gay, will provide basic coverage of up to $20,000 for qualified partners for a premium comparable to the ones married city employees pay for spouses or other legal dependents, Chenelle said. Several different plans are available.

The city will also contribute $24 a month to partners who obtain additional coverage, the same amount now given to provide catastrophic health care to city employees with spouses or other legal dependents.

West Hollywood officials tried without success for three years to persuade private insurers to extend coverage to the unmarried partners.

“Of course, we want them to insure the non-employee partners in the same way the spouses of married employees are insured, but they simply refused,” said Jan Murphy, the city’s personnel director.

“One could surmise the companies were afraid of increased risk associated with AIDS, or maybe they just didn’t want to appear to be condoning a life style. They haven’t bothered to explain. They’ve just said no.”

Not Recognized

Janice Seib, a spokeswoman for Kaiser Permanente, which insures many of West Hollywood’s employees, said that “the company at this time does not recognize domestic partners as legal dependents.”

Santa Cruz, the city of Berkeley and the Berkeley Unified School District are believed to be the only other government entities in the nation that have legislation enabling them to offer insurance benefits to unmarried partners of employees.

Madison, Wis., is also considering partner benefit legislation, according to the Lesbian Rights Project in San Francisco, which monitors such issues.

West Hollywood’s domestic partnership law, one of the first measures championed by the gay community after the city was incorporated in 1984, has largely been symbolic.

It provides domestic partners with jail and hospital visitation rights similar to those of spouses. But the city does not have a major hospital, and the only jail is a Sheriff’s Department lock-up facility where visitors are not allowed.

Important Hurdle

Those who have wanted to see the ordinance expanded view the insurance provision as an important hurdle.

“It says to me the law is not something that’s been forgotten,” said John Cook, a city employee who last year registered with his lover of 18 years in anticipation of the plan.

While most of the couples who register are gay, city officials say, more heterosexual couples have begun to register in the last year, and they expect the trend to continue.

“Right now, you’re talking about a dozen people who stand to benefit from the insurance plan,” Murphy said. “But we’ve got 50 or 60 single people who are city employees. The potential is certainly there for many of them, gay or straight, to take advantage as the word spreads.”