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UCLA’S WILLIAMS INSTITUTE
RELEASES NEW STUDY ESTIMATING
COSTS OF PROVIDING SAME-SEX
DOMESTIC PARTNER BENEFITS TO
FEDERAL EMPLOYEES: PROVIDING
COVERAGE TO OVER 30,000 PARTNERS
AND CHILDREN WILL COST $41.0
MILLION IN THE FIRST YEAR. Press Release September 24, 2008 Media Contacts: LOS ANGELES – Today the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law reported that offering health and other benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees would add $41 million to the federal budget in the first year of coverage. Today the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs will hold a hearing on S.2521, “The Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act,” which would offer such coverage. Chairman Senator Joseph Lieberman entered the Williams Institute report into the official hearing record. More than 30,000 employees with same-sex partners would benefit if Congress enacts this bill. Over ten years the report predicts the budgetary cost will be $675 million, a small percentage of the federal budget. “Adding partners to health care coverage is the most expensive part of the bill,” noted study co-author Naomi Goldberg, the Peter J. Cooper Public Policy Fellow at the Williams Institute. “But the cost increase of $43.5 million in year one is only 0.4% of total health care expenditures, a tiny fraction that is consistent with the experience of the thousands of private employers offering domestic partner benefits.” Christopher Ramos, a researcher who also worked on the study, pointed out that several states and more than half of the Fortune 500 offers health insurance to domestic partners of employees. “The federal government will find it harder to attract and retain talented employees if compensation does not keep up with the competition for employees,” he added. “That means there’s a cost of not offering domestic partner benefits to the federal government, as well.” The report also takes into account the added federal income taxes that will be paid by federal employees if they sign a partner up for health insurance. The IRS treats domestic partner health care benefits as “imputed income” that is taxable, unlike health care benefits for spouses that are not taxed. “The federal government would give benefits to federal employees with one hand but take $11 million of that back every year with the long arm of the IRS,” reported M. V. Lee Badgett, research director of the Williams Institute and study co-author. The report also estimate the cost of including partners in retirement benefits, work injury and death compensation, and travel and relocation expenses. Many benefits offered to federal employees, such as life insurance and family and medical leave, can be offered to domestic partners at no additional cost to the federal government. The full report is available at http://www.law.ucla.edu/WilliamsInstitute/home.html.
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