Labels and Gay Benefits in Health Bill - NYTimes.com

Labels and Gay Benefits in Health Bill - NYTimes.com: "WASHINGTON — Lower taxes for gay couples who receive health benefits from employers. Nutrition labeling requirements for snack food sold in vending machines and many restaurants. A new program to teach parents how to interact with their children."

Those are some of the little-noticed provisions in a mammoth health care bill taken up Saturday by the House of Representatives.

The main purpose of the bill is to make health insurance readily available to all Americans. To that end, it would expand Medicaid and provide hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to help moderate-income people buy insurance.

As a high-priority bill for Congressional leaders and President Obama, the legislation has become a vehicle for many other initiatives large and small.

Supporters of gay rights have long been trying to change the tax treatment of health benefits provided by employers to the domestic partners of their employees. In effect, such benefits are now treated as taxable income for the employee, and the employer may owe payroll taxes on their fair-market value.

Under the bill, such benefits would be tax-free, just like health benefits provided to the family of an employee married to a person of the opposite sex.