What a quote! Some have responded with an emphatic, “Yeah!” Others with a confused, “Huh?” The Republican Congressman who wrote the bill simply said “nuts,” but that has not ended the discussion. As I read conservative blog sites today, such as Sam Pierce for the Chicago Daily Observer, one of the common themes in support of Palin’s right to dishonor American soldiers while she “makes stuff up” was that there is nothing wrong with “anticipating the implications of legislation.” Hmmm.

If it’s ok to anticipate potential implications from legislation, is it also ok to acknowledge real implications that currently exist?  Conservatives have decried a fictional government panel that would decide whether people are worthy of health care. The premise of the argument is that nobody should have the right to decide what kind of care humans receive. But what about the “death panels” that already exist?

Conservatives hate the idea of the government deciding, but they certainly seem to be fond of the current decision making process. There are already “death panels” at work all over America, ensconced in the hushed offices of the nation’s $2 trillion health insurance industry. The existing system sends one million people a year into an abyss of no insurance. There are decisions being made every day by private companies to refuse needed health care for “pre-existing conditions.” Such decisions are being made constantly, and the conservative right supports the process, refusing to acknowledge the reality of the current system.

So how about a little reality? How do the current “death panels” impact people’s right to health care and life? According to the Center for Health Statistics, Hispanic children were twice as likely as black non-Hispanic children and three times as likely as white non-Hispanic children to be without health insurance coverage. Black children are nearly twice as likely to lack health insurance coverage as white children. This means preventive care, dental care, all that Sarah’s children enjoy on a daily basis, is not accessible to others. Someone is making decisions.  

Another study, published in the New York Times, looked at survival rates from traumatic injuries to adults. The study noted that “after controlling for severity of injury and other factors, they found that compared with whites, African-Americans had a 17 percent increased risk of death and Hispanics a 47 percent increased risk of death.” This is not tooth care, this is life and death. Decisions are being made, and somehow this is acceptable?

I do not want to go “Glen-Beck” and call out the conservative right as “racist.”  But I do want to point out that Sarah Palin’s right to protect her “child with Down Syndrome” from a fictional death panel is an eerie mirror image to a Hispanic mother’s right to protect her child from the real thing.

If you want to be “pro-life,” you can’t be just about your life, or the life of your children. Hispanic children, black children, people who are urban, suburban or country, it does not matter. No one should be denied care, and death panels should not exist. Health care reform is urgent, for the very reasons that Sarah Palin is afraid of it.