The Orange County Board of County Commissioners decided at its meeting today to repeal a county ordinance granting benefits to domestic partners of the same sex. In 2012, the county passed an ordinance issuing health benefits to same-sex domestic partners, "to ensure parity for same-sex couples who did not have the option to marry," according to a memo from J. Ricardo Day, director of the county's Human Resources Division, to Mayor Teresa Jacobs and the Board of County Commissioners. "The program was not available to opposite-sex couples because they have always had the right to marry in the state of Florida."
But now that the U.S. Supreme Court has declared marriage between same-sex couples legal, the memo states, the need for the plan has been "nullified."
For those who've gone ahead and gotten married, that may be the case; everybody else better start making plans to marry or find a new source for health insurance. The program is repealed effective Jan. 1, 2016, but anyone enrolled in the program before that date has a grace period that lasts until Dec. 31, 2016 to find new insurance.
