Obama extends health care rights to gay partners.

[Silcc69]

WASHINGTON – In a move hailed as a step toward fairness for same-sex couples, President Barack Obama is ordering that nearly all hospitals allow patients to say who has visitation rights and who can help make medical decisions, including gay and lesbian partners.
The White House on Thursday released a statement by Obama instructing his Health and Human Services secretary to draft rules requiring hospitals that receive Medicare and Medicaid payments to grant all patients the right to designate people who can visit and consult with them at crucial moments.
The designated visitors should have the same rights that immediate family members now enjoy, Obama's instructions said. It said Medicare-Medicaid hospitals, which include most of the nation's facilities, may not deny visitation and consultation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.
The move was called a major step toward fairness for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.
"This is a critical step in ending discrimination against LGBT families and ensuring that, in the event of a hospital stay, all Americans have the right to see their loved ones," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
The new rules, Obama said, should "guarantee that all patients' advance directives, such as durable powers of attorney and health care proxies, are respected," and that patients' designees be able to "make informed decisions regarding patients' care."
Some gay advocacy groups say Obama has moved too slowly to fulfill campaign promises to expand their civil rights. The nation's top military leaders recently said it is time to end the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that has kept gays from serving openly in the armed services.
The Human Rights Campaign, which backs gay rights, called Obama's decision an "important action" that was inspired in part by a New York Times article about a lesbian couple in Miami. They were kept apart while one lay dying in a hospital despite having an "advanced health care directive" asking for full visitation rights for each other.
"Discrimination touches every facet of the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, including at times of crisis and illness," said HRC President Joe Solmonese. "The president's action today will help ensure that the indignities" suffered by the Miami patient and her children will not happen to others.
In his statement, Obama said: "Every day, all across America, patients are denied the kindnesses and caring of a loved one at their sides — whether in a sudden medical emergency or a prolonged hospital stay. Often, a widow or widower with no children is denied the support and comfort of a good friend."
He added: "Also uniquely affected are gay and lesbian Americans who are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives — unable to be there for the person they love, and unable to act as a legal surrogate if their partner is incapacitated."
Without the expanded visitor-designation rights, Obama said, "all too often, people are made to suffer or even to pass away alone, denied the comfort of companionship in their final moments while a loved one is left worrying and pacing down the hall."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100416/...pital_patients


This shoulda been done along time ago but late is better than never. Wonder what the other party will say about this?

[BluegrassCat]

Good to see him do something because it's right rather than because it's politically instrumental.

[SarahG]

Misleading article, he's not extending health care rights. What he's doing is clarifying existing laws on information consent.

Extending health care rights would be, say, forcing insurance companies to treat gay couples the same as married straight couples (letting one of the partners be listed on the policy as a dependent). Right now if a straight married couple has one spouse stay at home, while the other works, the stay at home can have health insurance from the working spouse's employer health care policy. Gays don't usually have that ability, except for in very rare cases where the working spouse works for a progressive company (like Apple Computers).

This executive order OTOH is just telling the hospitals that they have to follow Hippa law. Hospitals have been picking and choosing what parts of the law to follow when it comes to gay couples.

The way its SUPPOSED to work, you go in to see your doctor. A friend of yours gets worried about you and calls the dr to see how it went. Under HIPPA the doctor cannot legally tell them ANYTHING. But if you sign a waiver with the doctor's office, then the doctor can talk with them about your condition. You can sign a waiver to allow the doctor talk to anyone, even some random bum found out in the hospital's dumpsters, and that's all fine and legally valid. Relatives are the same way, your sister, mother, cousin, grandmother can't talk to your doctor unless you do the paperwork first. But some doctors and hospitals were refusing to talk to gay patients' partners, even when given the legal power to do so. They were also ignoring gay partners when deciding medical decisions for patients (like whether or not to unplug someone in a coma) by ignoring the paperwork that establishes who gets to decide such things.

So what Obama is doing is saying, you have to follow the wishes of the patients, as per the paperwork they've done expressing those wishes.

[onmyknees]

WASHINGTON – In a move hailed as a step toward fairness for same-sex couples, President Barack Obama is ordering that nearly all hospitals allow patients to say who has visitation rights and who can help make medical decisions, including gay and lesbian partners.
The White House on Thursday released a statement by Obama instructing his Health and Human Services secretary to draft rules requiring hospitals that receive Medicare and Medicaid payments to grant all patients the right to designate people who can visit and consult with them at crucial moments.
The designated visitors should have the same rights that immediate family members now enjoy, Obama's instructions said. It said Medicare-Medicaid hospitals, which include most of the nation's facilities, may not deny visitation and consultation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.
The move was called a major step toward fairness for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.
"This is a critical step in ending discrimination against LGBT families and ensuring that, in the event of a hospital stay, all Americans have the right to see their loved ones," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
The new rules, Obama said, should "guarantee that all patients' advance directives, such as durable powers of attorney and health care proxies, are respected," and that patients' designees be able to "make informed decisions regarding patients' care."
Some gay advocacy groups say Obama has moved too slowly to fulfill campaign promises to expand their civil rights. The nation's top military leaders recently said it is time to end the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that has kept gays from serving openly in the armed services.
The Human Rights Campaign, which backs gay rights, called Obama's decision an "important action" that was inspired in part by a New York Times article about a lesbian couple in Miami. They were kept apart while one lay dying in a hospital despite having an "advanced health care directive" asking for full visitation rights for each other.
"Discrimination touches every facet of the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, including at times of crisis and illness," said HRC President Joe Solmonese. "The president's action today will help ensure that the indignities" suffered by the Miami patient and her children will not happen to others.
In his statement, Obama said: "Every day, all across America, patients are denied the kindnesses and caring of a loved one at their sides — whether in a sudden medical emergency or a prolonged hospital stay. Often, a widow or widower with no children is denied the support and comfort of a good friend."
He added: "Also uniquely affected are gay and lesbian Americans who are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives — unable to be there for the person they love, and unable to act as a legal surrogate if their partner is incapacitated."
Without the expanded visitor-designation rights, Obama said, "all too often, people are made to suffer or even to pass away alone, denied the comfort of companionship in their final moments while a loved one is left worrying and pacing down the hall."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100416/...pital_patients


This shoulda been done along time ago but late is better than never. Wonder what the other party will say about this?

Wonder no more pea brain...........As Sarah suggests, it's already the law. I was under the impression this wasn't and shouldn't be an issue any more. But as I've done previously....I caution you where you get your "news" from, and this is a case in point.

[Silcc69]

onmyknees there you go with this childish name calling when I didn't even say ur name, but your doing a good job showing how ignorant you are. You kill me when you talk shit about keepingitreal470 then go on and do the same thing that you claim he does.

[onmyknees]

onmyknees there you go with this childish name calling when I didn't even say ur name, but your doing a good job showing how ignorant you are. You kill me when you talk shit about keepingitreal470 then go on and do the same thing that you claim he does.

frankly you deserve to be called names when you misrepresent the truth. You're hopefully a mature adult and if you can't take being called a pea brain...you better quit now cause life's a bitch ! I was going to be far harsher, but thought it might upset you too much...LMAO. ...You were hoping to solicit a response, and when you did, and it wasn't to your liking...you whine. You can try like hell to make the comparision between myself and that never to be mentioned racist stalker, but it don't cut it. You have a a preconcieved notion of what the "other side" is....that's ignorant. You call me ignorant, and you copy and paste a yahoo story that's just flat misleading, and then site it as fact. You could have simply quoted the story, but you had to take a passing shot. So for your benefit, and continued education, here are some lines from a very strident blog that you would call the "other side". Your question was asked, now answered. Let's move on.

"Didn't we just spend ten months altering the provision of healthcare in this country? This time he isn't going to muck about waiting for Congress.
Earlier today, he issued a memorandum to DHHS, ordering the agency to set new requirements for U.S. hospitals that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding (which is almost all of them).
The hospitals must respect a patient's wishes regarding who is allowed to visit, including in advance directives when the patient may be incapable of designating visitors. This applies to all patient's wishes, not just regarding gays. Also, the hospitals may not discriminate in their visitation policies on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
The stealth provision that has gone unremarked in the title of the memo and the media coverage so far is that hospitals must also comply with advance directives giving non-family individuals the right to make decisions about patient care.
There have only been, to my knowledge anyway, a few isolated incidents of hospitals denying visitation to gays who have a hospitalized spouse or partner. I'm glad the President is acting to end it, at least in hospitals that take federal funds. There's little reason not to fix a bad thing even if it's scarce, particularly when it can be fixed with little cost. (Support for allowing gay couple visitation rights is somewhere around 90% and Obama needed to throw a bone to the permanently pissed off Gay Left.)"

[Silcc69]

No it wasn't to my liking because you had to go out and call me a name. But of course I guess I should expect that from you. There are other users that share your point of view though only Beagle is the one that comes to my mind. Of course we disagree but I have never had any issues with him because he doesn't go around calling people names.

But if you want a better link then sure I hope this suffices for you:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010...tation-rights/

[onmyknees]

No it wasn't to my liking because you had to go out and call me a name. But of course I guess I should expect that from you. There are other users that share your point of view though only Beagle is the one that comes to my mind. Of course we disagree but I have never had any issues with him because he doesn't go around calling people names.

But if you want a better link then sure I hope this suffices for you:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010...tation-rights/

Get over getting called a pea brain already...will ya? You're like a overly ripe peach ...you bruise quite easily. I hope your buddy ( you know ...the racist) never unleashes on you...you'll crumble! LMAO...

If I thought you were worth the time and effort, I'd go back to the old boards and dig up some of your gems...you like to throw plenty of your left wing holier than thou bullshit around, but when it blows back on you...you can't take the heat. Maybe it's best you avoid politics and just get your post count up, it seems to be a little too rough for you.

The reason I have zero tolerance to people like you and call you out no matter how minor the infraction is you're fed a narrative by a lazy left wing press and you lap it up like a hungry puppy. The problem is that narrative is generally incomplete, or just plain wrong, but it matters not...it suits your agenda. Instead of making assumptions about what "the other side" thinks...why don't you engage in dialogue...or better yet ask them.

You tried to back door your usual dribble at the end of your initial post...that's why I called you out. Get over it.

[Silcc69]

I luv these boards but i put a worthless POS shit like yourself on ignore so no KISS MY BLACK ASS U SON OF A BITCH! LMAO!

[BluegrassCat]

I'm glad the President is acting to end it, at least in hospitals that take federal funds. There's little reason not to fix a bad thing even if it's scarce, particularly when it can be fixed with little cost.

So you do acknowledge that he did something and it was worth doing. Sarah had already clarified what the memo actually did, so you only got into this thread to insult the OP. Seems like pointless instigation.