When Sarah Palin came up with that idea during the debate over the
Affordable Care Act, most of us just shook our heads and said, "Well,
there goes Sarah Palin again." We thought of it as a falsehood, an
exaggeration, hyperbole. But the governors and legislators who opted out of the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion constitute very real Death Panels in those states.
Little did we know that so many state legislatures and governors would indeed sentence millions of people to death by depriving them of the health insurance coverage that could lead to early diagnosis and treatment of all kinds of health conditions--from diabetes to cancer. Researchers at Harvard estimate that between 7,100 and 17,000 people per year will die because of these states' petulant refusal to expand Medicaid,
The New York Times reported that the opting- out states "will leave out two-thirds of the poor blacks and single
mothers and more than half of the low-wage workers who do not have
insurance."
So there you have it. Virulent opposition to minimum wage increases; violation of Fair Labor Standards Act guidelines for establishing unions (Tennessee); destruction of Planned Parenthood clinics for women. It's not just a War on Women. It's a War on the 99%.
