Skip to main content
Oregon Health & Science University sent an email to employees today, telling them that benefits coverage for their domestic partners and children would be discontinued on Dec. 31.
The OHSU benefits team and the Employee Benefits Council, a group of OHSU employees who consult on benefit matters, made the determination after “careful deliberation,” the email, obtained by WW, says. “Determining the relationships eligible for coverage is one of many decisions the benefits team, in partnership with the Employee Benefits Council, evaluates each year. No EBC members opposed the decision, though some abstained from voting.”
OHSU began offering benefits to domestic partners more than two decades ago, the email says, when “this coverage was an issue of fairness and equity.” OHSU changed the policy because same-sex marriage has become legal nationwide and “the number of employers providing domestic partner benefits coverage has steadily declined. OHSU benefits will continue to be available to all legal spouses, whether same-sex or opposite-sex.”
After pushback from employees, OHSU president Danny Jacobs reversed the new policy on the same day. An OHSU spokeswoman acknowledged the discontent, but said Jacobs reversed the decision as soon as he heard that the change had been made.
“This morning you may have received a message from the OHSU Benefits team stating OHSU is discontinuing benefits coverage for domestic partners and children of domestic partners,” Jacobs wrote. “Although the Employee Benefits Council voted to discontinue this coverage, their decision will not be implemented. The EBC did not reach full consensus, and I am taking action to ensure this coverage continues. To be clear, OHSU will continue to offer insurance coverage for domestic partners and the children of domestic partners. Eliminating this coverage is not in alignment with our values.”
The episode is the latest employee kerfuffle at OHSU. Last month, it said it would hand out $12.5 million in bonuses to 2,000 of its 19,765 employees. Executive vice presidents and other top managers are to receive the largest payouts, according to a document obtained by WW, a move that irked some employees. The bonuses are called “President’s Recognition Awards” and are not based on performance.
OHSU is in the process of trying to purchase Legacy Health, its struggling cross-town rival. The two hospital systems signed a letter of intent to do the deal in August.
Brian Druker, OHSU’s most famous doctor, weighed in on the domestic partner matter after the fact. The inventor of Gleevec, a drug that revolutionized cancer research, sent an email to some OHSU staff seeking to ease any anxiety that the brief revocation of benefits may have caused.
“First and foremost, I want to apologize to anyone who spent even a minute thinking that a loved one would not have benefits,” Druker wrote in an email obtained by WW. “I am sure that that despite the reversal of this decision, the impact and trauma caused by these events is far more serious. It is my strongly held view that this withdrawal of benefits should never have been seriously considered at an institution that prides itself on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.”
Druker didn’t immediately return an email seeking further comment on the matter.