President Obama has issued a presidential memorandum instructing his Health and Human Services secretary to draft rules requiring all hospitals receiving federally funded Medicare and Medicaid payments (nearly all American hospitals) to grant all patients the right to designate who can visit and consult with them in moments of health crisis.  Hospitals may not deny visitation rights and consultation privileges to anyone on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. 

The rules primarily apply to patients’ advance directives, in which a patient can designate, before they are ill or critically injured, who they want with them in their hour of need.  Although the new rules are a huge victory for the GLBT community, these are not the only people affected.  For example, older people without children, or whose children are absent, can designate a close friend to be with them instead, a choice that hospitals would have denied in the past because a close friend did not fit the criteria of immediate family. 

Obama’s decision was influenced in part after reading an article regarding a Miami lesbian woman whose advance directive stating her wishes that her longtime partner was at her side when she was dying was ignored by the hospital.

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."

As always, there are opponents to the move, saying that using Medicare and Medicaid to enforce this decision was improper.  It should be noted that the exact same tactic was used by President Lyndon B. Johnson to ensure that hospitals desegregated.  Others are saying once again that this violates the sanctity of marriage. It has absolutely nothing to do with marriage, it only addresses the right of a sick or dying person to choose who they want with them in their hour of need.  America is a country with a wide variety of people from many different familial backgrounds.  There are many for whom the person closest to them is not their family, or whose families are estranged for whatever reason. The President should have the support of the American people for this decision, which is not a radical decision, but a fair one.