Domestic Partnership

[Lewski88]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? District of Colombia

My boyfriend and I are trying to find out some more information about domestic partnership.

We live in DC. He is in law school (yes I wonder why he can't just whip out these answers himself, haha) and I am working as a event planner at a medical assocation.

We have been together for 5 years and I want to be able to offer him my medical benefits as he cannot get health insurance from his parents anymore becuase he is a part time law student, not full time.

We were told that to quialfy for this we would need to declare legal domestic partnership.

My question is, would I have to take him on as my dependent? Would his parents not be able to claim him as a dependent anymore? And, what other legal issues are involved with a domestic partnership? (Beyond the obvious that I have already read about - assuming the same rights as a spouse, if he were to get in an accident and end up in a coma, or if I were to be in a hospital, he would get the same visitng rights as a family member.)

And lastly, as we read up about domestic partnership in DC we noticed that it was not renewed, does that mean that it does not exisit any longer in DC or does not mean what it used to?

Sidenote: A lot of my friends have asked why we do not just get married about while I am more than happy to share the benefits I get from work with him we are not ready for marriage. We live together, for over a year now, we have a dog together, we've been buying large peices of furniture together but we are not ready, mainly to pay, for a ring and a wedding, so domestic partnership is right for us.

[seniorjudge]

http://www.dchealth.dc.gov/doh/cwp/view,a,1374,q,580926,dohNav_GID,1802,dohNav,|33200|33240|.asp

Here's a good place to start your research.

This is a new area of the law and questions about it will be litigated for the next hundred years or so.

(Dang lawyers! )