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This evening President Obama issued a presidential memorandum for the Secretary of Health and Human Services today, requiring hospitals that accept Medicare and Medicaid dollars to recognize a patient’s “designated partner” in terms of visitation and health consultation rights – a rule that will dramatically impact lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans’ medical rights.

“There are few moments in our lives that call for greater compassion and companionship than when a loved one is admitted to the hospital,” the president writes in his memo. “In these hours of need and moments of pain and anxiety, all of us would hope to have a hand to hold, a shoulder on which to lean -- a loved one to be there for us, as we would be there for them. Yet 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.”

The memo says that the “designated partner” rule could impact members of some religious orders and seniors with no children who are currently “denied the support and comfort of a good friend,” but “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.”

Noting that designated partner rules have been legislated in Delaware, Minnesota, Nebraska, and North Carolina, the president writes that hospitals taking Medicare and Medicaid will have to give a patient’s “designated partner” the same visitation privileges as immediate family. Hospitals also have to respect “all patients' advance directives, such as durable powers of attorney and health care proxies” and that designated representatives “have the right to make informed decisions regarding patients' care.”

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is also given six months to come up with other actions her department “can take to address hospital visitation, medical decisionmaking, or other health care issues that affect LGBT patients and their families.”

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