In this LA Times article, Seema Mehta writes about Governor Palin’s name being mentioned during the VP Debate by Joe Biden and her comment on the death panel now known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board:

Sarah Palin hasn’t taken part in a vice presidential debate in four years, but the fiery former GOP running mate remained a presence in Thursday’s face-off between Vice President Joe Biden and GOP running mate Paul Ryan

[...]

“President Obama and Democrats have argued it is a centralized body which will figure out best practices taking place among healthcare providers among the nation, and spread word of them. Republicans have argued that this practice will inevitably lead to rationed care, or, as Palin dubbed it during her 2008 vice presidential run, a “death panel.

The article concludes:

Death panels have been debunked, and Mitt Romney does not use the term on the trail, though he does raise the rationed care argument as a logical extension of Obama’s federal healthcare law.

Debunked?  Just because FactCheck.org won’t recant their position doesn’t mean the rest of us have to adopt this same illogic.  When FactCheck.org named Governor Palin’s infamous post on death panels the lie of the year in 2009, nobody knew what the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) was.  Governor Palin and American Spectator were the first to point it out recently: that the panel she warned about existed in this advisory board.  It exists at the cost to the taxpayers.  It is compiled of 15 individuals who will make decisions on a collective scale for a country of 300 million people with regard to specific medical procedures.

This is why the media and organizations like FactCheck are becoming irrelevant.  In order to protect the president, they’ll put what’s best for the entire country second.  Governor Palin on the other hand took scrutiny for putting the people first as she has always had the reputation of doing throughout her entire career.  And as she stated, she doesn’t regret it and she still stands by it.

It’s easy to do that when you tell the truth and aren’t interested in pandering.

Further, what difference does it make if Mitt Romney comes out and calls it a death panel or focuses more on the term “rationed care?”  What does rationed care ultimately lead to in the case of the sickest in society?  As I wrote about Britain in an article published months ago, a 40-year old woman with breast cancer was placed on an extended waiting list for the mammogram which reduced the chances of her success rate.  A baby became very ill after being delivered to a mother who had to wait two hours for an ambulance driver.  Parents of sick kids had to rush around the country trying to find care as one local hospital had extended waiting lists.

In all of the examples I cited, the National Health Service (NHS) is mentioned.  It’s the same panel which makes the same decisions from the top.  Call it “rationed care” or call it a “death panel” but it seems to always lead to something worse than what we are used to receiving in the USA in terms of health care.

There’s no difference between the terms used.  “Death panel” simply gets to the heart of the matter a little bit faster when used by people who stand first to feel the brunt of it.  Such people have special-needs children and elderly folks in their lives like Governor Palin and so many of us.

It goes without saying that it was the love Governor Palin had for those closest to her (and for her country) which gave her the courage to call it out for what it was in 2009 and I am thankful that she continues to tell it like it is today; despite the fact that others who shied away from the fight back then are using different phrases to describe it now.