Court campaign to overturn South Dakota v Dole? It’s an outrageous decision that permitted the Feds to hold States at gunpoint by having massive and arbitrary penalties for not having the laws the Feds wanted (in that case, 21 drinking age, but the same applies to any one of thousands of things).

This is pretty far down my list. As far as I can see, this costs no money and doesn’t force anyone to do anything other than honor the written request of an adult human being to allow someone important to them to visit. While this includes homosexual partners (and heterosexual unmarried partners) it could be anyone the patient designates. Married people are not the only ones who deserve the comfort and support of a loved one at their side.

I want my doctor to look like Maggie O’Connell from “Northern Exposure”, and I want the nurse to look like Ripples Brancusi from “Trapper John, M.D.”

and it agree with it mostly although with the overall issue of the government using its financial clout to get its way, its a two way street.

Privately owned hospitals are free to refuse the federal mandates, but then they would lose the Medicaid and Medicare business…but they were the ones that decided to accept it in the first place. Now I realize that if they don’t take that business they might have to make cut backs or operate a much smaller operation or even close their doors but it is still their choice and if they put business ahead of their principles then thats their choice.

Just like his xo on the abortion thing.
It means nothing.
I have had to visit hospitals many many times in my life and I cannot think of one single time when I was challenged as to my right to be there.
Most of the time I never even saw a nurse.
No one has ever even asked my name or who I was not even once. It is just a cliche that a hospital would prevent someone’s homosexual partner from visiting them in the hospital.
It doesn’t happen anywhere.
It as less credibility than a Bigfoot sighting.
A hospital would never restrict visitation privileges of a dying person’s loved ones, friends or co-workers.
Hospital workers are glad to see patients have visitors because it cheers the patient up.
The family of a person may make that demand on restrictions but it would not come from the hospital and it would only apply to a minor or if the patient was incapacitated.
There would be no reason to do that other than to be spiteful.
There will always be that extreme .00001% of situations such as the Schiavo case when this has happened but it only proves my point.
It was not the hospital restricting access to her but a spiteful husband and a state judge.

regarding the patient in general, and most importantly pulling the plug.

I have lived this, and it’s an issue that needs to be resolved.

I have a cousin who had a beautiful, loving, 25-year completely monogamous relationship with another man. He got hit head-on by a drunk driver, and was on life support. His partner wanted to leave him on life support for a while; his so-called religious sister (also my cousin, and who believes homosexuality is a sin) would have none of it. She, as his closest living relative, had the final say. The plug was pulled.

I believe she did it out of spite and greed. She was able to get her brother’s will overturned, and got just about everything that should have gone to his partner.

Mind you, when her mother (my aunt) was in the same situation (complications of a stroke) this same sister refused to even consider pulling the plug; no one was going to do what she considered to be “God’s job”.

As far as getting Medicare/Medicaid funding cut, there are a fair amount of hospitals who aren’t even taking it any more, so that may not be an issue pretty soon.

The problem of gay and lesbian partners not being granted equal visitation rights has been gnawing at our social awareness and conscience for a long time.

Social issues such as this ought to be addressed when they appear, when it is timely to discuss and resolve them in some way. Simply sweeping an issue under the rug or saying no to those who feel legitimate discomfort or pain doesn’t make the issue go away. Instead, it grows until it more or less demands some kind of attention, and at that point, the action taken may have more to do with urgency than with careful consideration.

..that get Medicare or Medicaid money are herby directed to quit using salt in their cafeteria meals and patient trays. Diito trans fats. All doctors getting Medicare and Medicaid payments are hereby directed to determine if patients live in “at-risk” homes where there are firearms (oops, they already ask that question!). All hospitals getting Medicare payments are herby directed to stop reporting suspected child solicitation and molestation incidents by members of NAMBLA or NAWGLA. All hospitals getting Medicaid payments are herby ordered to begin patient education programs on the horrors of Global Warming. All hospitals getting Medicare payments are hereby commanded to stock copies of THE THOUGHTS OF CHAIRMAN MAO in their visitor lounges. ALL HOSPITALS GETTING MEDICARE PAYMENTS ARE HERBEBY BOUND TO INVITE THE SEIU TO ENTER THEIR HOSPITALS AND UNIONIZE ALL EMPLOYEES.

The second hazard is what’s at work here: when Uncle Sam isn’t content to make those unavoidable decisions and starts using the power of the federal purse to nationalize all sorts of things that have no business being matters of federal concern.

Now that Mark Levin doesn’t have to bother contesting the “deemed passed” challenge (remember?) maybe he’d be willing to challenge this executive order in court.

Maybe Obama’s method is the issue here instead of the actual order, but I’d rather wait until the order is objectionable before I object.

It’s really hard to fight someone who is doing the right thing using a questionable method (and “questionable” is debatable).

I don’t think this hill is worth dying on. Move on to something else.

as if they were George III.

I am not a lawyer, but I have probated two wills on my own, and have two family members who are lawyers, so as to the gay couple and the sister, I can tell you in NJ, a sister has virtually no say in a person’s medical resolution, if a patient is in crisis in a hospital. Here, you need a spouse or a child to speak if you are incapacitated or a living will, and if not, the hospital proceeds down its own road (even seeking independent appointments of administrators for estates) unless somehow a court order can be produced to stop it.

As far as overturning a will, I know from my mother’s and husband’s, you can leave your estate to wild rabbits that live under your porch or people you think can beam you up, and unless someone with “standing” vis a vis the will’s writer, no one can change that will. You do not have to leave your estate to your relatives of any kind, altho’ in NJ a wife is entitled to her “dower’s portion” (1/3) should a legal husband try cutting her out of an inheritance will. Only the most egregious exigent circumstances would stop a gay partner or any other kind from receiving bequests or a total estate, and you have to have a really powerful reason to get a lawyer to take a case to break a will to start.

Obama thinks he is a king-elect. He learned this tactic from Clinton when Bubba famously signed away half the West from state or private ownership and Begala or the Ragin’ Cajun or one of those sycophants drooled over the document and declared in admiration, “Law just with the wave of a pen,” which I believe, is why we had a revolution here to begin with. Clinton issued 50,000 pages of administrative orders, and I would suspect little o has done at least 1/2 as well in under 18 months.

As to where EO’s go to roost, they are published in the Federal Register, but how they are organized, I don’t know.

The left moves further and further into the tyrant’s corner daily, as, disliking the messiness of democratic legislating, members of the little o cabal have publicly admired Chinese totalitarianism, the Castro Golddust Twins dictatorship, and Chavez’ South Am. Banana Republicstanism. So, I don’t like o signing any order, let alone one that so intrudes on the local governing of hospitals and patient care.

And let me add to the chorus of voices firmly in favor that same-sex couples should have visitation rights at hospitals.

But that’s not the issue here. As Dan notes, it’s about the centralization of power and how that power inevitably gets abused.

If the government can grant those visitation rights with a stroke of a pen, it can take them away with the stroke of a pen. And how would the people who are cheering this ruling today like that prospect?

If you like the arbitrary usage of federal power for political ends you’re going to love Obamacare. And such centralizaiton always starts with a popular sort of measure like this. It’s liberals way of baiting the trap for America to walk into.

To be surprised that Obama signs an executive order demanding a change in gay visitation or anything he feels needs to be addressed is a mistake. Obama is the guy that in a different time in a different nation would be rounding up people right and left because he feels he has the right to rule. In this nation, that may not happen, yet. But that doesn’t mean Obama isn’t laying awake at night mumbling to himself. “If I had the power I would round up those crazies over at Redstate, Beck and the rest who undercut the good of the state.”

Don’t believe me? Take a look to our south at his main “bromance” Chavez and his laws.

http://truthandcommonsense.com/2010/03/28/chavez-turns-the-corner-into-tyranny-obamas-main-man/

Or all of them? Hardly seems fair to Eric Massa.

Kentucky Congressman, Geoff Davis, with the support of a bipartisan group of 40 senators and 100 congressmen has introduced the (REINS) Act (H.R. 3765). “This bill, if signed into law, would require affirmative approval by Congress before any and all major regulations could become the law of the land. The REINS Act would restore power to the people and accountability to Congress for the regulatory framework in America.”
http://geoffdavis.house.gov/Forms/Form/?ID=690

Powers of Attorney and medical directives are the best solution to the visitation problem. You really can appoint anybody.

One of the social benefits of marriage is that it orders society. A hospital can look up a marriage record pretty easily, so it is pretty easy to adopt a visitation policy which respects marriage. The same can be said for birth and adoption records.

President Obama’s order will put an additional burden on hospitals. How is the hospital staff supposed to know who is the same sex partner? Some states have answered with registered domestic partnerships. Without some sort of record, how does one prove the relationship?

Gay marriage doesn’t solve the problem. There will always be loving relationships outside of marriage. Many committed people choose not to marry. Some marriages are loveless with the partners finding love with a non-spouse. There are even non-sexual loving relationships like old war buddies. The challenge comes in publicly recognizing something so private.

We need to shift the focus of this debate away from sex and towards respect for love of all kinds.

As someone who works in hospitals, I see this as truly an empty gesture Obama is making to the gay/lesbian community. This argument that gays and lesbians can’t visit their partners in some hospitals is a “strawman/woman” issue. ANY gay or lesbian person, just like everyother American, can fill our legal documents provided upon admission to the hospital called “Living Will” or “Medical Durable Power of Attorney” (a federal law since the early 1990s) in which they can designate whoever they want to be informed of or make medical decisions for the hospitalized person. This thing Obama and the gay/lesbian community say about not being allowed to visit their partners in the hospital is a made-up, ficticious issue! Obama made so many empty promises to the gays/lesbians during the Democratic primary in order to get their votes (and they, stupidly, like so many other Americans) just listened to what came out of his mouth rather than studied his track record, and “hoped” he would do something for them. Obama’s never done anything for anyone other than himself.

But what if, as in the Lacey case, the admitted patient is unconscious and never regains capacity to designate an agent? For married people, the spouse is pretty much automatically given visitation rights and a say in the course of treatment, regardless of whether a power of attorney was executed ahead of time. Unmarried partners? Not so much. Even if they have taken the extra steps needed and arranged for the documents ahead of time, the hospital may not respect them.

We can argue about the best method of addressing the problem, but it is not a “straw” issue for unmarried partners.

www.jeannie-ology.com

This is such bull that I can’t believe people fall for it. NO WHERE IN THE UNITED STATES ARE PEOPLE DENIED THE RIGHT TO VISIT SOMEONE IN THE HOSPITAL. NO F**KIN WHERE. If you are a small child, you might be kept from a locked unit, like a pysch unit. If you are a small child, you might be kept from a infectious disease unit, especially if it is a reverse air flow, like a bone marrow donor room. If you are on a newborn unit, chances are you will be asked to leave if you don’t actually know a birth mother, BUT no where in the US are people denied access to patients in the hospital, except when asked for security reasons. First of all, the patient is free will and self owned and not property of the hospital so that is backward thinking. We do not give up the right to self determination just because we are receiving medical therapy. To believe otherwise is not just idiotic, it is insane. They can make suggestions about times to visit but they cannot refuse your family, friends, or neighbors from being with you.

As to granting the medical rights, ANY ONE CAN GIVE MEDICAL POWER OF ATTORNEY TO ANY ONE THEY CHOOSE. This is tort law and exists in most states with a patients bill of rights. As to some of the nuances, like the right to shared insurance, and blanket rights to property (including the property rights of a human body for disposal), those are private and states rights, not King Obama.

What the president has done, which you don’t see, is he has set himself up as arbitrator in Chief over visitation rights in a hospital setting. Federally mandated rights now where none existed in the Constitution or in any amendment or in any Bill of Rights. He has given himself a new power that he didn’t have last week. That is what is wrong with this. It is the same thing with his Presidential Decree to give some groups special rights and priviledges over others. If you are white, heterosexual, working, then you can be beaten, killed, disparaged, and name called without impunity. All others have the right to have their feelings from being bruised. What could go wrong?

I went a read the Lacey story. What is not being said is that the hospital people routinely keep EVERY ONE out during a medical emergency. Let me tell you as a retired nurse, I was kept from my own father while they were working on him. Was it because I was black or gay? No! It was because they were trying to save his life or because they were working on him. When I finally barged my way in, they said he had vomit on his chest and needed to be cleaned up but I demanded to stay. This woman didn’t know the rules but the rules had nothing to do with her gayness. WHAT A CROCK.

Dan, you write:

“How would liberals like it – they may live to find out – if a future GOP president used the same authority to BAN … visitation rights for gay couples?”

Of course, the answer is that they would not like it at all. And rightly so, in my view. But there does, to be fair, seem to be a lack of parallel here.

The way things presently stand, a ban has been overturned in favor of an allowance. Individual Americans (in consensual relations) have been allowed to do as they see fit when it comes to visitation.

The libertarian part of my political soul approves of this.

It is true that such allowance may be represented as a ban. Thus, the Feds are banning local institutions (states, hospital boards) from engaging in restrictive practices. But, again, this is in the service of Individual Freedom (in a context of consenting adults).

If the Federal Government, in exercising powers politically deriving from “the financial dependence of hospitals on the Medicare and Medicaid programs” promotes individual freedoms, then I’m not convinced there’s anything terribly wrong with that. On the other hand, if they were to promote restrictions on individual freedoms (e.g., banning Americans in consensual relations from visiting one another in hospital), well, I’d see plenty wrong with that.

The gist of the point is that, at the level of individual freedoms, there is a morally significant difference between banning and allowing.

What hospital denies access to patients?????????/ Name one…

“One day, liberals may awaken to realize that the Right is running Washington again – and there’s nowhere left to hide from it.”

Unlikely. Look at England – what passed for “the Right” is somewhere to the left of our Left. Once the nanny welfare state gets big enough, there no longer is a mainstream political party to oppose it because too many oxen get gored and there’s no support. The Left knows this, which is why they don’t really worry about their newly-grabbed powers ever being seriously used against them: true conservatives don’t on principle, and RINOs don’t because in reality they are pulling in the same statist direction.