On Thursday, April 15, 2010, President Barack Obama issued a memorandum to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) directing relevant agencies to take steps to ensure that individuals are not discriminated against in hospital settings on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The memorandum requests agencies to develop rules to protect gay and lesbian patients and their families and address issues of hospital visitation, medical decision making, or other healthcare issues. Specifically, any healthcare agency that receives federal dollars for medical service reimbursement (for example, Medicare and/or Medicaid) must allow partners of gay and lesbian patients full visitation rights and allow them to serve as the decision-maker for their plan of care (placing them in-control of execution of advanced directives, do not resuscitate protocols, living wills, durable power of attorneys, etc.). Check out THIS LINK for the complete memorandum. The measure serves as another sign of President Obama’s intelligence and understanding of the importance of commited relationships among gay and lesbian persons.