Any hospital that accepts Medicare or Medicaid (i.e., all of them) now has to let a patient put anyone on their visitation list, even if they aren’t family, so cases like this, where a woman couldn’t see her adopted children and partner of 18 years on her deathbed, may not happen again.
Since this was federal rule making (the province of the executive branch), we’ll see if Congress wants to take time from its busy schedule and reverse it.
Omnes Omnibus
Something that might let people who are suffering have some comfort? Yeah, the House will try to reverse it.
jon
Will the DSM-V finally remove “Gay Cooties” from the list of psychological contagions? Not if enough Congressmen get hives.
Mike in NC
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ll go with “Cramming visitation rights down our throats!”
Persia
@Mike in NC: No, it’ll be the Job Killing Visitation Rights Policy. Because someone might get fired for not letting people see their own family on their deathbeds.
beltane
I’m sure the Republicans will try to see to it that the rights of the most bigoted and vindictive hospital worker to harm the afflicted and torment the dying will not be infringed.
aimai
I’ll go with “Catholic Conscience Clause” for the win here. Catholic hospitals are going to be enraged that they can’t serve the poor while also kicking the gays in the face. They are going to petition for the right to quiz each visitor on his or her sex life and nurses, pharmacists, doctors and janitors are going to demand the right to refuse to care for/clean the rooms of gay people. That is if they follow the very successful “conscience clause for pharmacists” dealio on abortion and contraception.
aimai
guster
Central planning, bah.
Ija
I think what this proves is that government-run health care system held hospitals hostage to the whims of stupid government regulation. Abolish Medicare and Medicaid now! What, the Republican base is mostly old people? Okay, Medicaid only then. That’s for poor people, right?
Dennis SGMM
@Mike in NC:
They have to come up with one of their down-is-up titles for the bill first. You know: something like The Clear Skies Act of 2003. It will probably be something along the lines of The Patients Anti-Intrusion Act of 2011. I’m convinced that the GOP has it’s own name-generating software running on a PC somewhere.
Omnes Omnibus
@aimai:My wife is actually spoiling for a fight with a pharmacist over this issue. She is hoping that someday one tries to deny her a prescription on those grounds, especially if the pharmacist also refuses to return the prescription form.
jeffreyw
@Dennis SGMM:
The Poleaxe Whimsey Palin Patient Act of 2011. Wait…wrong generator…
maryQ
I think you forgot to add: OBAMA IS WORSE THAN BUSH HE SOLD US OUT!!! under “Posted in”
Nick
Clearly Obama only did this because Congress will reverse it. He’s worse than Bush. I’m writing in Cynthia McKinney’s name in 2012.
Baud
But I wanted to die alone and miserable. Now I’ll be pressured by my family to put them on the visitation list. Isn’t there some group named after a hot beverage that will stand up for my right to let my hospital make decisions for me?
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: The Hot Buttered Rum Party is willing take up cudgels in defense of your right to be miserable and alone.
Chyron HR
It’s just a plot to kill gays by exposing them to sick hospital patients.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
I look forward to the GOP arguing that hospital rights outweigh individual rights.
@aimai: We went through some of this when some super Christiany medical professionals refused to treat AIDS patients because well … AIDS. Obvious punishment by God for being a big old Kw33r, duh.
Speaking of the never-ending war against narrow-minded buffoons, HUD is getting into the game (24 pg. PDF).
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@Dennis SGMM: And that PC is run by a 3-legged hamster that hasn’t been fed in a while.
MikeJ
Damn you Obama!
Maude
This is a Medicare rule. Congress can’t do squat.
WereBear
Perhaps they were simply safeguarding the dying from being pressured into joining a union. After all, if we allow life partners and adopted children in, it’s exactly the same as allowing people in off the street.
MikeJ
@Maude: Yes they can. Congress can pass a law reversing the Medicare rule and forbidding any rule like it.
The DoD passed a rule allowing gays in the military and Congress passed DADT. They can and do overturn rulemaking all the time.
Maude
@MikeJ:
Medicare is an agency. They are allowed to make rules and have been doing so for years. Congress funds the payments.
It’s not like DOD. Congress regulates the military.
In order to reverse a rule, Congress would have to go into the Medicare law and that isn’t something they would do. It would be a major change.
I have Medicare.
Nick
@Maude:
yeah, which means they CAN do it. Have you met the Republicans?
morzer
Time for Erick Erickson to lead the fight against people being forced by federal bureaucrats to have their loved ones with them in times of pain and suffering.
Maude
@Nick:
I can’t argue this point. It goes nowhere.
I am tired of glib statements.
The law would have to be changed and the Senate would have to pass it and then Obama sign it. It’s crazy to think that the Repubs are going to do that.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@Maude: No. Sorry. Every year for at least … the past 6 years Congress has reset Medicare’s pay rate for doctors’ services and they always make a few other changes while they’re doing it. In 2010 they did it at least 4 times. So Congress CAN make changes to HHS regs., it’s just a matter of whether the TeaCongress is dumb enough to chase this particular car.
Nick
@Maude:
It has as much of a chance of passing as healthcare repeal, which is to say Congress CAN try to overturn it. Which is all we’re saying.
RSA
If they do, I’ll bet they go with a completely generic objection, something like “federal overreach”. It won’t be cast in moral terms (they’d lose that argument very quickly) but in terms of a continuing government take-over of health care, via regulations. I hate Republican politicians.
Cacti
Congress doesn’t have time for this. They’re busy focusing on jobs.
*cue laugh track
MikeJ
@Nick: Exactly. Nobody claimed congress could get such a change passed right now. Merely that Maude’s statement sounded as if she meant there was a prohibition on congress changing rules as adopted by agencies. Which is patently untrue.
But no, no such law could pass right now if only because Obama would have to sign it after somebody convinced Harry Reid to take it up and get it passed in the Senate.
Roger Moore
@RSA:
I think you’ll be able to tell who’s running the show by what objections they raise to this rule. If the moral busybodies are in charge, they’ll complain about the gay agenda and forcing religious hospitals to go against their conscience. If the business lobbyists are in charge, they’ll complain about government overreach and telling doctors how to treat their patients. The one thing they’ll avoid talking about in either case is how patients feel.
Martin
[Sigh] More big government telling people what they can and cannot do.
Somebody repeal that shit so we don’t have to watch fags hugging in the hospital.
RinaX
Gawd, when will the people rise up and remove the tyranny of Kenyan socialism from the around the necks of real, true blue ‘Merkins?!? This will lead to the gheys taking our guns, somehow…
RinaX
Moderation? Was it the use of the word K e n y a n?
platosearwax
I’ve never understood the reasons for restrictions on visitors like this. Yeah, it is cumbersome for the staff to have a dozen people around, but one or a small number, who cares if it is “family” or not? Why can’t a best friend come to visit someone who is dying?
Roger Moore
@RinaX:
Nope, it was soci alism. If you don’t put in the space, misspell it somehow, or the like, it contains the name of a brand of ED pill that spammers love to talk about. It’s yet another thing that wasn’t properly taken care of during the site upgrade.
Maude
@Nick:
Sorry if I sounded so blunt. I understand what you mean. What I was pointing out that it is a process that Repubs don’t want their oldsters to clamour over.
I think HHS is different. Medicare is CMS.
I would have to look up any changes made. I do know about the payment to doctors that gets batted around.
RinaX
@Roger Moore:
Ahh, thanks. I figured some word I used triggered it.
asiangrrlMN
The fact that this is even an issue (visitation rights) really fucking depresses me. However, good news, indeed.
Monala
Here’s the interesting thing about the conscience clause, if Catholic hospitals do decide to attempt it: it would affect many people who have very close relationships, sometimes even closer than family, with someone who is not a partner. Would a Catholic hospital deny the right for a non-related godchild to see their dying godparent, for instance?
(Kind of like the town that passed a law that only city employees and their spouses and biological kids could have health insurance, not realizing that it would affect not only for LGBT couples, but also for retired city employees, foster kids and stepchildren).