Group health insurance plans are penalizing spouses

Group health insurance plans are extracting a fee from employees who enjoy the luxury of choice.

Companies such as Ford, Microsoft, General Electric, Gannett and Pitney Bowes, among others, all impose surcharges for providing group health insurance to spouses of employees - when the spouses are eligible for insurance at their own workplaces.

Last week, Tribune Co., which owns the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and The Courant, joined in, telling employees it would start the fee in January.

Surcharges can range from $600 a year to several thousand. Tribune plans to charge $900 - $75 a month.

In the case of smokers, companies and their advocates say it's a matter of promoting health and of fairness, given that smokers, as a group, generate higher costs for employers through direct health care expenses and lost productivity.

The spousal surcharge isn't an additional burden in all cases. Microsoft, for example, pays all health insurance costs for its employees, deducting nothing from their salaries and requiring no co-pays, said spokesman Lou Gellos. Microsoft employees whose spouses join Microsoft's plan then pay $900 per year.

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