Obama Orders Hospitals to Grant Same-Sex Couples Visitation Rights

by Michael D. Shear | Washington Post

President Obama on Thursday signed a memorandum requiring hospitals to allow gays and lesbians to have non-family visitors and to grant their partners medical power of attorney.

read more

Health Law Cuts the Cost of Being a Woman

by Denise Grady | New York Times

Being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition. That’s the new mantra, repeated triumphantly by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Barbara A. Mikulski and other advocates for women’s health. But what does it mean?

read more

Why LGBT People Benefit from Health Care Reform

This week’s passage of historic health care legislation will improve the lives of millions of Americans, including many people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. To quote President Obama, “This isn’t radical reform, but it is major reform,” and while LGBT anti-discrimination provisions were not included in the final bill (pdf), the passage of health care reform is a momentous achievement that will save lives and will improve access to much-needed health care. Once reform is fully implemented, more than 95 percent of the country will have health insurance coverage, including 32 million who are currently uninsured. This matters to LGBT people because:

1. A disproportionate number of LGBT people are poor (pdf) and/or homeless due to pervasive discrimination. Extending health care coverage to an additional 32 million economically disadvantaged people will help a critically vulnerable segment of our community gain access to basic medical care.
2. Under the new law, adult children under the age of 27 will be allowed to stay on their families’ insurance policies, even after they leave home and/or graduate from college. Between 1 million and 9 million children are being raised by LGBT parents in the United States today and poverty rates for children of same-sex couples are twice as high as poverty rates (pdf) for children of different-sex married couples.
3. According to the Williams Institute (pdf), studies show that people in same-sex couples are more likely to be uninsured than are people in married different-sex couples. A 2006 survey of national data showed that 20 percent of people in same-sex couples were uninsured, compared with only 11.5 percent of married individuals.
4. A study analyzing the National Health Interview Survey found that women in same-sex couples were statistically significantly less likely to have health insurance than women in different-sex relationships.
5. Women will no longer be subjected to “gender rating,” a practice used by insurance companies to charge women more than men for the exact same policies and under reform, maternity care will be covered.
6. Community health centers would receive an additional $11 billion (pdf), doubling the number of patients who can be treated regardless of their insurance or ability to pay.
7. Health insurance companies will no longer be allowed (pdf) to deny people coverage because of preexisting conditions. This provision will be a tremendous benefit to transgender people, people with HIV, and people with cancer, including the disproportionate number of lesbians who suffer with breast cancer.

Given how many lives and personal economies have been ruined due to unaffordable health care, this legislation will prevent disaster for millions of people. But we recognize that this bill comes at a cost. There is no coverage of undocumented immigrants, which is shameful. There are restrictions on reproductive freedom, which are outrageous and must be remedied. And the failure to include specific anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people is unconscionable. The final package also did not include a provision which would have eliminated the tax paid on domestic partner health benefits offered by employers. LGBT individuals are entitled to health care free of prejudice and we must continue our work to eradicate barriers faced by LGBT people in accessing health care. We must advocate for a woman’s right to choose, a physician’s right to provide the care that he or she believes is medically appropriate and necessary to his or her patients without unwarranted interference from the government, and full and equal access to health care for all people, including equal access to assisted reproduction. NCLR is working with other civil rights organizations to protect and advance these precious human rights.

While this legislation is imperfect—a product of compromise—it is a foundation upon which to build. And while there is much work to be done, including adding anti-discrimination provisions for LGBT people, this unquestionably is a historic moment. President Obama just signed one of the most significant progressive laws passed in decades. This is a tremendous, hard won victory, and we must continue our work to fill the gaps left by this bill.

There is much to be learned by the long journey to passing this legislation, which teetered on the brink of defeat on several occasions. Our nation remains deeply polarized, with opponents of health care reform resorting to familiar fear-mongering and hate-filled tactics. Members of Congress who supported health care reform were targeted in appalling ways, and Tea Party activists hurled racist and anti-gay epithets at African American and openly gay Representatives. Our community is all too familiar with these opponents, the very same who support anti-LGBT ballot measures. However, this week we rose to victory and trampled their campaign of scare tactics and lies. That victory reverberates across the nation, and we must sustain this momentum, stay true to our vision, and not fall prey to divisiveness.

In the coming weeks, we will be put to the test again. Already, the debate over the reconciliation bill rages on in the Senate. We will see similar debates as President Obama pushes for comprehensive immigration reform and as our community fights for long overdue workplace protections and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

We are in historic times and we are witnesses to and participants in groundbreaking, but still flawed victories. We all need to engage, get active, be involved and sacrifice like never before to make certain that the changes we seek and the gains we make include our community. This has to be our time.

In Solidarity,

In Health Bill, Obama Attacks Wealth Inequality

by David Leonhardt | New York Times

For all the political and economic uncertainties about health reform, at least one thing seems clear: The bill that President Obama signed on Tuesday is the federal government’s biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago.

read more

Kaine Plans to Extend Health Benefits to Same-Sex Partners

by Anita Kumar | Washington Post

Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has directed his staff to begin putting into effect a proposal that would allow same-sex partners to be covered under the state’s employee health plan.

read more

American Medical Association Votes to Seek Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

by Lindsey Tanner | Associated Press

The American Medical Association on Tuesday voted to oppose the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, and declared that gay marriage bans contribute to health disparities.

read more

Labels and Gay Benefits in Health Bill

by Robert Pear | New York Times

Lower taxes for gay couples who receive health benefits from employers. Nutrition labeling requirements for snack food sold in vending machines and many restaurants. A new program to teach parents how to interact with their children.

…Supporters of gay rights have long been trying to change the tax treatment of health benefits provided by employers to the domestic partners of their employees. In effect, such benefits are now treated as taxable income for the employee, and the employer may owe payroll taxes on their fair-market value.

Under the bill, such benefits would be tax-free, just like health benefits provided to the family of an employee married to a person of the opposite sex.

Representative Jim McDermott, Democrat of Washington, who proposed the change, said it would “correct a longstanding injustice, end a blatant inequity in the tax code and help make health care coverage more affordable for more Americans.”

read more

The Higher Lifetime Costs of Being a Gay Couple

By Tara Siegel Bernard and Ron Lieber | The New York Times

by Laura Pedrick for The New York Times

Much of the debate over legalizing gay marriage has focused on God and Scripture, the Constitution and equal protection.

But we see the world through the prism of money. And for years, we’ve heard from gay couples about all the extra health, legal and other costs they bear. So we set out to determine what they were and to come up with a round number — a couple’s lifetime cost of being gay.

read the full article, listen to the podcast, and check out the interactive graph here

NCLR: Equal Access to Healthcare and Reproductive Rights are Civil Rights

Watch: Something Terrible is Happening! From MoveOn.org with Will Ferrell and Friends

posted with vodpod

Learn more about NCLR’s healthcare advocacy work

Pelosi Worried about Angry Health Care Rhetoric

by Laurie Kellman | Associated Press

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she worries that angry rhetoric over President Barack Obama’s effort to remake the nation’s health care system could incite violence.

Speaking to reporters Thursday, the California Democrat was asked whether she was worried about the tone of the debate. She said it reminded her of the “frightening” rhetoric over gay rights that roiled San Francisco in the 1970s and culminated in the murders of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone.

read more