Obama: Give Gay Couples Hospital Visiting Rights

(CBS)  President Barack Obama is moving to grant gay and lesbian partners the same hospital visitation rights as married couples - seeking new rules that would remedy a longstanding thorn in the side of civil rights groups.

In a two-page memo released Thursday, Mr. Obama asks the Department of Health and Human Services to write new rules for all hospitals participating in Medicare or Medicaid mandating the equal visitation rights.

The measure is not aimed solely at gay couples - Mr. Obama notes that widows and widowers, members of religious orders and others with loved ones who are not immediate family members can face the same predicament. Still he notes that gay couples are "uniquely affected … often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives."

Read the full text of the memo at CNN (PDF)

The changes Mr. Obama seeks would allow patients to designate any individual as a permitted visitor, including in documents - such as advance directives - that have legal force when a patient is in a coma or otherwise unable to communicate.

For affected groups, the status quo has "real consequences," Mr. Obama wrote.

"It means that doctors and nurses do not always have the best information about patients' medications and medical histories … It means that a stressful and at times terrifying experience for patients is senselessly compounded by indignity and unfairness. And it means that 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."

The new rules would also prevent hospitals from denying anyone from being granted visitation rights on the basis of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or other discriminatory factors - but would still allow doctors' discretion over medical considerations.

[CoastalExchange]

When did Americans become such A-holes to people? How about live and let live.... Seriously, the USA screams Rome part 2 right now.

[jankebenzone]

by jankebenzone April 18, 2010 7:08 AM EDT
addressed to attentiondeficit
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Beat it sicko, your interest in child molestation leaves you without any reasoning ability. You've become part of the depraved and evil romans one refers to.
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In rereading my posts, I find it was not you who mentioned child molestation earlier on but someone else.
My apologies for accusing you as such.

[tensai13]

.......Until Justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.

[libertarianone]

I think gay people do and should have the same rights as straight people.The only hold back I see is when they want to call two people of the same sex a "marriage".By definition,marriage is the melding of two distinctly DIFFERENT items.They could never be considered married by definition,but would probably have little opposition to a 'legal union'.Drop the deal with calling it a marriage and they will go full steam ahead.

[jankebenzone]

by AttentionDeficit April 18, 2010 6:39 AM EDT
If that is your idea of reasoning, you really are a slave, boy
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Beat it sicko, your interest in child molestation leaves you without any reasoning ability. You've become part of the depraved and evil romans one refers to.

[AttentionDeficit]

You don't know anything about me, slave. Keep on quoting your bronze age comic book and thinking it will bring you mercy from your punk god

[AttentionDeficit]

Also, you inbred gash, you are the one who has brought up child molesting. Really, come out of the closet and bring Ted Haggart with you

[jankebenzone]

by jankebenzone
But then as is mentioned in biblical scriptures, only the fool says there is no God."

Wow, Janke - Earth shattering, really. Just imagine that the book supposedly about God is telling you that its God is real!
Truly, I bow to that reasoning. <rolling eyes>
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By your own ideology and reasoning you prove the bible true!

[AttentionDeficit]

If that is your idea of reasoning, you really are a slave, boy

[hunt4becca]

God has a funny way of bringing your consciousness full circle. When your terminally ill child is treated by a gay man, don't mistake how that happened, it will be God's will. That man was blessed with that gift. To deny that is a diservice to God. HE knows what he is doing; who are you to question it?

I know Jesus is coming and you feel you need to look busy but you'd probably be happier if you left judgement where it belongs, in the hands of God. Have a little FAITH that God knows what He is doing.

Pray for people who you feel are lost. Help people who seek it. Ask yourself, is what I'm doing hurting someone? Being the bigger person and truly serving God means acknowledging that other's needs are more important. Did you ever stop to think how the gay doctor feels?

[peregrine3]

This yankabone doeth protest too much me thinks

[AttentionDeficit]

he and haggart

[1renegade]

No need for a law just three words
"Power of Attorney"

[jaykay3141]

What does it say about our society that there are still some "humans" whose hearts are so full of hatred that they won't allow two people to be with each other in a time of need? Are the opponents of this measure so twisted inside that they can't even stand the mere THOUGHT of a same-sex couple being in a hospital room together?

If these bigots been born 60 years earlier they would have fought against blacks and whites on the same bus, let alone marrying. A hundred years ago they would have opposed associating with the Irish, the Polish, Jews, or anyone else who wasn't "just like them", all the while claiming that it was the will of God.

Sickening.