Home Depot to offer health care benefits to employees' domestic partners

<p>The Home Depot Inc. plans to offer health insurance to same-sex domestic partners of its employees starting next year, the company said Thursday.</p><p>Home Depot, the nation's largest home improvement chain with 1,802 stores and 300,000 employees, said in a statement that eligible employees will be able to enroll their domestic partners starting in October.</p><p>Until now, Atlanta-based Home Depot had only offered domestic partner benefits in the areas of bereavement leave, medical leave, relocation expenses and an employee assistance program, a spokesman said.</p><p>Home Depot said the health care benefits package for domestic partners has been in development for about a year.</p><p>The chain has been criticized by some employees and human rights groups for not previously extending health care benefits to domestic partners of employees.</p><p>In a statement coinciding with Home Depot's announcement Thursday, Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign, a national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group, hailed the company's decision.</p><p>"The Home Depot is finally putting its people first," said the group's president, Cheryl Jacques, a former Massachusetts state senator.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x2866068)</p>