Gays Get Hospital Visitation Rights

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Gays Get Hospital Visitation Rights

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Finally the gay, lesbian and transgender rights advocates who campaigned and voted for Obama have gotten something in return.

Addressing an important rights issue, President Barack Obama has written a memo ordering hospitals in the U.S. to grant to gay and lesbian partners the same visitation privileges already enjoyed by married heterosexual couples.

One caveat of the order is that those hospitals required to allow visitation must explicitly receive Medicare and Medicaid money. Private hospitals without government support are still free to be as homophobic as they want.

The memo also requires that all documents for power of attorney and health care proxies be accepted and honored, regardless of the patient’s sexual orientation. —JCL

Los Angeles Times:

President Obama late Thursday ordered most hospitals in the country to grant the same visitation rights to gay and lesbian partners that they do to married heterosexual couples.

In a memo to his Health and Human Services agency, Obama ordered the secretary to ensure that all hospitals getting Medicare and Medicaid money honor all patients’ advance directives, including those designating who gets family visitation privileges.

The order also requires that documents granting power of attorney and healthcare proxies be honored, regardless of sexual orientation. The language could apply to unmarried heterosexual couples too.

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By Leefeller, April 16, 2010 at 3:49 pm Link to this comment

Damn that Barrack Obama!

Every time Obama does something like this he makes the Republicans look much worse then they already seem.

The GOP works overtime to make complete asses of themselves, so when Obama does it, they really get their hackles up, they rather do it themselves!

GOP,..... just say no!

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By RAE, April 16, 2010 at 2:30 pm Link to this comment

Q1: When and how was it decided in the USA that a citizen has no rights except those specifically protected in the Constitution and/or specifically “allowed” by legislation of some sort?

In my view a citizen automatically has ALL RIGHTS whether or not they’re specifically mentioned in some Bill of Rights except those that for some SENSIBLE reason must be restricted (and “religion” doesn’t count as a basis for “sensible” judgement - duh!) Who appointed themselves the “granter-of-rights?” Whoever it was I don’t recognize their authority to do so.

Q2: Since when does a hospital take ownership of a sick person to the point that they get to decide who can visit? If and when I enter hospital I grant that service the right to TREAT MY ILLNESS/CONDITION and no other. I and I alone reserve the right to determine who visits.

It should be a source of extreme SHAME that a country such as the USA requires an ORDER by the President to override the discriminatory and draconian mini-minds who’ve been given a tiny bit of “authority.”

I guess it all goes back to the days when, in the Old West, some loner gets a badge pinned to his chest and a gun or two hanging from his belt and all of a sudden… HE’S THE LAW! I’ve never in my life experienced a so-called democratic country so full of fascists fixated on gaining POWER OVER others rather than sharing POWER WITH. Talk about UP TIGHT and SMALL MINDED!

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