Healthcare

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- The Governor of Maryland has notified state employees that shared benefits for domestic partners will end on December 31, and if they want to continue their health insurance coverage, they'll have to get married. [ Read more → ]

LANSING, Mich. — A decision to provide health insurance to same-sex domestic partners of Michigan state government employees has been left intact. [ Read more → ]

SALEM, Ore. -- A federal appellate judge ruled this week the judiciary must grant health care benefits to the same-sex spouse of a federal public defender in Portland, and ruled that Oregon's same-sex marriage ban, enacted by voters in 2004, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act are both unconstitutional. [ Read more → ]

DURHAM, N.C. — Duke University has announced it will begin offering student health insurance coverage for gender confirmation surgery. The university joins a handful of other institutions offering similar coverage, though the University of North Carolina System currently does not. [ Read more → ]

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Monday introducing the Tax Parity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act, a bill that would end the taxation of employer-provided health insurance for domestic partners, as well as the penalty imposed on employers who provide equal benefits to their LGBT employees. [ Read more → ]

MONTPELIER, Vt. — The Vermont House of Representatives has voted to require out-of-state companies that offer health coverage to the spouses of opposite-sex married couples to provide the same benefits to same-sex couples. [ Read more → ]

LINCOLN, Neb. -- As the 2013 legislative session in Nebraska commenced last week with two LGBT-friendly bills introduced for debate, the University of Nebraska announced it plans to offer health care benefits for the university's partnered same-sex and opposite-sex couples. [ Read more → ]

SALEM, Ore. -- The Oregon state Health Plan and its Healthy Kids Program will soon begin covering medically-necessary care for young people experiencing gender dysphoria on Oct. 1, 2014, making Oregon the first state to ensure coverage of transgender kids under Medicaid. [ Read more → ]

SALEM, Ore. — Regulators in Oregon and California have quietly directed some health insurance companies to stop denying coverage for transgender patients because of their gender identity. The states aren't requiring coverage of specific medical treatments. But they told some private insurance companies they must... [ Read more → ]

SAN FRANCISCO -- The San Francisco Health Commission, the governing and policy-making body of the city's Department of Public Health, announced Tuesday its intent to remove transgender exclusions from the "Healthy San Francisco" health access program. [ Read more → ]

DALLAS -- The Dallas County Commissioners on Tuesday voted to begin giving a stipend to unmarried and gay employees whose partners purchase individual health insurance because they aren’t eligible for coverage under the county’s benefits program. [ Read more → ]

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- The Indianapolis City-County Council has approved an ordinance to provide health-care benefits to the domestic partners of city employees. [ Read more → ]

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has confirmed that it views a 2010 law prohibiting sex discrimination in health care services as protecting transgender and other LGBT people from discrimination based on gender identity and gender stereotyping. [ Read more → ]

Nearly two years after a complaint was filed charging that "Healthy San Francisco," the city's health insurance program for uninsured residents, is discriminatory because it excludes services for transgender people, city officials are in the process of rectifying the situation and including such services in the program. [ Read more → ]

Gay federal employees will be able to cover the children of their same-sex partners under the federal health insurance plan once a proposed rule published Friday by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is enacted. [ Read more → ]

In a dramatic move with significant political and economic implications, a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday (June 28) voted to uphold President Obama’s landmark health care reform law. [ Read more → ]

The number of American hospitals striving to treat LGBT patients equally and respectfully is on the rise, according to a report released Tuesday by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation at a press conference with U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C. [ Read more → ]

TOLEDO, Ohio -- City employees who are partnered but not married could receive health care and other benefits under a proposed measure that would extend benefits to the domestic partners of Toledo's employees, provided they have certified their status with Toledo's Domestic Partner Registry. [ Read more → ]

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge this week ruled that the denial of insurance coverage to the same-sex spouse of a federal court employee in San Francisco was an act of discrimination. [ Read more → ]

EL PASO, Texas -- A Texas appeals court on Friday ruled against a coalition of anti-gay Christian groups who sought to recall El Paso mayor John Cook and two city representatives after they voted to restore health benefits to gay and unmarried partners of city employees. [ Read more → ]