Medicare lays out post-DOMA coverage policy for gay couples

[William769]

Gay married couples are now eligible for nursing home care through Medicare-funded private insurance in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision against the Defense of Marriage Act, according to draft guidance from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid obtained Thursday by the Washington Blade.

In the new guidance, Danielle Moon, director of the Medicare Drug & Health Plan Contract Administration Group, explains the new post-DOMA policy to Medicare Advantage organizations, or private companies that contract with Medicare to provide coverage.

Moon says the ruling against Section 3 of DOMA requires these companies to cover services offered in a skilled nursing facility, or a nursing home, for a gay married couple to the same extent they would provide them to an opposite-sex couple.

“MA organizations therefore are required, effective immediately, to cover services in a SNF in which a validly married same sex spouse resides to the extent that they would be required to cover the services if an opposite sex spouse resided in the SNF,” Moon says.

http://www.washingtonblade.com/2013/08/29/medicare-lays-post-doma-coverage-policy-gay-couples/