# Obama mandates that hopsitals must respect the rights of same-sex partners **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 16, 2010, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-mandates-that-hopsitals-must-respect-the-rights-of-same-sex-partners/536358 "2010-04-16T16:09:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-mandates-that-hopsitals-must-respect-the-rights-of-same-sex-partners/536358/41 "2010-04-18T00:22:55Z")
Be patient; he has six more years to get stuff accomplished. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-mandates-that-hopsitals-must-respect-the-rights-of-same-sex-partners/536358/42 "2010-04-18T05:44:07Z")
> [@lindsaybluth](#): > > All of the discrimination - not allowing same sex partners health benefits, adoptive benefits, tax breaks, hospital bedside rights - would be taken care of by making gay marriage legal. Until that happens, people aren’t going to comply, and it’s tough to prove you’re “anything” when you lack a legal document in hand. I’ve seen places ignore a gay partner’s PoA. > > I’m not impressed. As someone who, without being gay, has been primary caretaker to someone with no blood relationship, I am. I’m all for same-sex marriage, but being told you can’t go into the doctor’s office with the patient even when the patient is saying “but I want her in!” sucks and is not something which happens only to life-partners. There are two separate (if related) issues here: 1. being able to do the “paperwork shorthand” known as marriage with whomever you want to, 2. getting recognition for any relationships where one person takes care of another, whether they are or not a life partner or the closest degree of blood relative. ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-mandates-that-hopsitals-must-respect-the-rights-of-same-sex-partners/536358/43 "2010-04-18T13:17:25Z")
I’m always confused about this, and I’m sure it’s just my inexperience with serious medical drama, but are there still hospitals that make visitors sign in and could or would actually bar someone from visiting? I’ve been to many hospitals as a visitor over the past few years, and once as an ICU patient, and aside from the ICU, there was never a single person who stopped me, made me sign in, asked why I was there or who I was visiting…I wandered around and barely saw any staff, much less someone who asked me my sexual or familial relationship with the patient. I’ve gone in to most hospitals in the area at one time or another, and only the maternity wards had any “gatekeepers” and even there, though I wasn’t the mother of the mom-to-be, once I was allowed in by the pregnant girl, no one questioned my relationship…or the fact that she left her real mother sitting outside in the lobby. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-mandates-that-hopsitals-must-respect-the-rights-of-same-sex-partners/536358/44 "2010-04-18T22:16:45Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > It’s not. You can sign to have someone else in on your care. I’ve had to with my parents, since I’m having to live with them, so that they can talk to them about me if I’m feeling too sick to talk. +1, I don’t think aceplace57’s understanding of HIPAA is complete as suggested. ---
**Author:** ![Turek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/turek/32/18782_2.png) [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-mandates-that-hopsitals-must-respect-the-rights-of-same-sex-partners/536358/45 "2010-04-19T12:36:30Z")
> [@kittenblue](#): > > I’m always confused about this, and I’m sure it’s just my inexperience with serious medical drama, but are there still hospitals that make visitors sign in and could or would actually bar someone from visiting? Yes, [bad situations occur](http://www.bilerico.com/2010/04/sonoma_county_ca_separates_elderly_gay_couple_and.php). ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-mandates-that-hopsitals-must-respect-the-rights-of-same-sex-partners/536358/46 "2010-04-19T13:01:02Z")
Now after reading that link I’m more confused…how does the healthy man get forced into a nursing home when he isn’t ill? I only have one month’s experience with nursing homes, but don’t they generally expect you to be in need of care when you arrive? ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-mandates-that-hopsitals-must-respect-the-rights-of-same-sex-partners/536358/47 "2010-04-19T13:20:47Z")
> [@kittenblue](#): > > I’m always confused about this, and I’m sure it’s just my inexperience with serious medical drama, but are there still hospitals that make visitors sign in and could or would actually bar someone from visiting? They must exist, but I know I’ve never had any problems visiting anyone in a hospital room either. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-mandates-that-hopsitals-must-respect-the-rights-of-same-sex-partners/536358/48 "2010-04-19T13:35:59Z")
This is from the article linked in the OP: > [@](#): > > 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. > > Obama called Langbehn on Thursday evening from Air Force One as he flew to Miami, White House officials said. In an interview, Langbehn praised the president for his actions. > > “I kept saying it’s not a gay right to hold someone’s hand when they die, its a human right,” she said, noting that she and Pond had been partners for almost 18 years. “Now to have the president call up and say he agrees with me, it’s pretty amazing, and very humbling.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-mandates-that-hopsitals-must-respect-the-rights-of-same-sex-partners/536358.md?page=2)