Obama Extends Hospital Visitation Rights to Same-Sex Partners

While continuing to break most of his campaign promises to LGBT Americans - particularly in respect to ENDA and the repeal of DADT - President Obama threw the LGBT community a bone yesterday by mandating that any hospital that receives Medicare or Medicaid funding must extend visitation rights to the partners of gay men and lesbians and allow same-sex couples to share medical powers of attorney. No doubt Catholic hospitals will not be happy, even though it will mean that LGBT couples will no longer need to avoid such hospitals in favor of non-sectarian hospitals. Up until now, I have specifically recommended to my LGBT clients that they avoid the two local Catholic run hospitals to avoid possible visitation and/or decision making problems. Hopefully this action will bar future tragedies where long time partners are barred from seeing their loved one such as the one involving Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond that occurred in a Miami hospital (I wrote about this incident and was privileged to have Janice write to me later). LGBT couples, however, still need to sign medical powers of attorney to make sure they fit within the scope of this new directive. Here are some highlights from the Washington Post:
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President Obama mandated Thursday that hospitals extend visitation rights to the partners of gay men and lesbians and allow same-sex couples to share medical power of attorney, perhaps the most significant step so far in his efforts to expand the rights of gay Americans.
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The president directed the Department of Health and Human Services to prohibit discrimination in hospital visitation in a memo that was e-mailed to reporters Thursday night while he was at a fundraiser in Miami.
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[T]he new rule, once in place, will affect any hospital that receives Medicare or Medicaid funding, a move that covers the vast majority of the nation's health-care institutions. It is currently common policy in many hospitals that only those related by blood or marriage be allowed to visit patients or have power of attorney, which allows them to make medical decisions on behalf of a seriously ill or injured patient. Obama's order will start a rule-making process at HHS that could take several months, officials said.
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Obama's mandate is the latest attempt by his administration to advance the agenda of a constituency that strongly supported his presidential campaign. . . . But the moves have been too slow for some gay rights activists, who have urged the president to be more vocal and active in championing their causes. John Aravosis, a prominent gay blogger, wrote last October that Obama's "track record on keeping his gay promises has been fairly abominable."
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[O]pponents of same-sex marriage have called the visitation issue a red herring, arguing that advocates want to provide special rights for gays that other Americans do not have. A spokesman for one group said the president's move was part of a broader effort to appease gays and to undermine the institution of marriage.
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"In its current political context, President Obama's memorandum clearly constitutes pandering to a radical special interest group," said Peter S. Sprigg, a senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council.
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Efforts to reach a spokesman for the Catholic Health Association of the United States were unsuccessful. In the memo, Obama said hospitals should not be able to deny visitation privileges on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. "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," he wrote.
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Officials said Obama had been moved by the story of a lesbian couple in Florida, Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond, who were kept apart when Pond collapsed of a cerebral aneurysm in February 2007, dying hours later at a hospital without her partner and children by her side.
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The new rules will not apply only to gays. They also will affect widows and widowers who have been unable to receive visits from a friend or companion. And they would allow members of some religious orders to designate someone other than a family member to make medical decisions.
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But it is clear that the document focuses on gays. A number of areas remain in which federal law requires proof of marriage, including receiving Social Security benefits and in taxes. "The General Accounting Office has identified 1,138 instances in federal law where marriage is important," said one gay rights activist.