Health Care Coverage for California Employers After Obergefell v. Hodges

After the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark marriage-equality decision this summer (Obergefell v. Hodges, discussed in here), we now have full equality between same-sex and opposite-sex spouses under federal and state law. That decision affects healthcare benefits for employers with California employees, as summarized below:

 

Defining the Term “Spouse”

 

Since federal law does not define spouse for health plan purposes, many health plans historically relied on a state law definition for the term “spouse.” In some cases, this resulted in different coverage options for same-sex spouses, depending on the state in which they lived. In other cases, plans were written in a manner to provide spousal coverage only for opposite-sex spouses. After Obergefell, employers should review their health plan documents to make sure they are defining spouse in a way that does not exclude same-sex spouses.

 

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