UMS gives benefits to heterosexual partners

BANGOR – The University of Maine System has expanded its health insurance coverage to include unmarried heterosexual couples.

The change came after Rep. Ed Dugay, D-Cherryfield, stated last October, in a letter to UMS interim Chancellor Don McDowell, that the system was discriminating because it covered traditional marital relationships and same-sex domestic partnerships, but not unmarried heterosexual couples.

The policy adjustment “made good sense” to both him and the board of trustees, McDowell said Tuesday.

“We felt it was difficult to provide a logical answer as to why we had one [covered] and not the other,” said the interim chancellor who discussed the matter with Dugay and other legislators.

“We were one of the leaders in the state in providing benefits for homosexual [partners], but as other [businesses and government institutions] began providing for both homosexuals and heterosexuals, we found ourselves behind the curve,” McDowell said.

The first of its kind adopted by a public employer in Maine, the 5-year-old policy allowed health insurance, tuition wavers and access to campus facilities to lesbian or gay partners of staff and faculty members in the university system. Since it was begun, 30 couples have been covered.

The university system recently has concluded collective bargaining with several units and is in the process of negotiating the remaining contracts, Tracy Bigney, director of human resources, said Tuesday. She said the new policy would triple the number of eligible couples.

Contracts that have been negotiated with full- and part-time faculty, service and maintenance employees and, tentatively, with police, include a change in the definition of domestic partner, she said.

Modifications also will be proposed to the remaining units whose contracts haven’t been made final. Those are clerical, office, laboratory and technical employees, as well as professional and administrative staff, she said.

The change in plan must be approved by the Bureau of Insurance, which Bigney hopes will happen within the next couple of months.

It was a change whose time had come, she said. “More and more employers are expanding health insurance to cover this kind of family structure, so it’s part of a competitive compensation issue,” she said.

Responding to Dugay’s complaints in a letter, McDowell initially defended the system’s coverage. “The University recognized that opposite-sex couples are legally able to marry and receive University benefits available to spouses,” he wrote.

Since same-sex couples aren’t legally able to marry, the university “concluded that these criteria were in accord with our nondiscrimination policy,” he said.

Dugay, who said a constituent had pointed out the apparent inequity, sent copies of the correspondence to legislators, asking for colleagues’ views.

“It worked out great,” he said Tuesday about his efforts to change the policy.

“I could tell by the swell of support … that I could present it to the Legislature, but why do that when I could meet with the university and have them change it on their own?” he said.

The system “couldn’t see the forest for the trees,” he said. “They were so excited about allowing coverage of gays and lesbians, they lost sight of heterosexual couples.”