The High Price of Being a Gay Couple

A recent article in the New York Times, The High Price of Being a Gay Couple, argues that over a lifetime the average gay couple pays far more in living expenses than the average straight couple. These higher costs are due to extra health-care and tax fees they bear mostly because they are unable to marry (aka are unmarried).

This analysis was done by creating two hypothetical couples, one lesbian couple and one straight married couple. Income, health, residence, education, and children were all kept the same. With Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center they concluded that same-sex couples pay a total of $41,196 to $467,562 more than the average straight couple on health-care, social security, taxes, child bearing, pensions, and spousal I.R.A’s.

Explanation for the range in costs:

Worst scenario: the “lower earner’s employer did not provide health insurance and her partner’s employer didn’t cover domestic partners.” This is a common practice – especially for government employees – resulting in the uncovered domestic partner having to buy private health insurance while her partner and children are still covered. This costs the lesbian couple $211,993 more than the married couple.

Best case: they only had to pay $28,595 more. If both partners could attain employer-provided health-care and the higher earner could provide domestic partner coverage for the five years she stays at home to raise their children (same for married couple). But why the $29,000 additional fee if the married couple is also attaining spousal coverage for those five years? Just that. It’s for spouses only - there are additional taxes for domestic partnerships. “A nondependent partner’s coverage is taxable income, and she can’t use pretax dollars to pay the premiums.
What do you think some of the implications are if coverage for domestic partners is left off the bill?