Give gay spouses same rights at all hospitals, U.S. proposes

(Bloomberg) — Hospitals would have to give equal rights to the spouses of gay and straight patients no matter where they live, as long as the marriages are legal somewhere in the country, the Obama administration said in a proposal today.

The new regulations would apply to virtually all U.S. hospitals as well as nursing homes, surgery centers, hospices and mental health clinics that accept Medicare or Medicaid.

When a patient is incapacitated by illness, for example, it can fall to a spouse to help with medical decisions. “If we do not make these revisions, our regulations would not afford equal treatment in Medicare and Medicaid participating facilities to same-sex spouses whose marriages were lawfully celebrated in jurisdictions that recognize same-sex marriage,” the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said in its proposal.