The past few weeks have seen a great deal of debate over whether a provision to provide free end of life counseling to seniors will lead to the government deciding who lives and who dies, invoking the imagery of Nazis and “death panels.” Despite how clearly false these claims may be, it’s difficult not to objectively admire the success conservative pundits and lobbyists had in persuading the American public into being fearful and opposing reform due to an assertion lacking any truth at all.

The reality is that such distracting rhetoric obscures the fact that thousands each year are already denied the right to life because the cost of providing care is too steep. We live in a society where powerful corporations employ CEOs at a cost of millions of dollars per year who see that they successfully overcharge the poorest, most powerless and ultimately silent majority, and deny coverage to those who need it most. While the insurance industry prospers and saw its profits quadruple over the past ten years, our government has been helpless in enacting regulations to limit the human cost of our health crisis.

While finding an exact number of the health coverage crisis casualties is virtually impossible, the estimates range anywhere from 18,000 to 100,000 per year. To put this in perspective, less than 4,700 have died while serving in Iraq since 2001. According to a landmark study, “Care Without Coverage: Too Little, Too Late,” uninsured people with colon or breast cancer face a 50% higher risk of death. Uninsured trauma victims are less likely to be admitted to the hospital, receive the full range of needed services, and are 37% more likely to die of their injuries. Further, about 25% of adult diabetics without insurance for a year or more went without a checkup for two years. That boosts their risk of death, blindness and amputations resulting from poor circulation. Regardless, these numbers are useless without a human face. Below are a few stories that I hope will drive home the gravity of the situation:

-In February of 2007 12-year-old Deamonte Driver complained of a toothache at school one Thursday. His mother, however, could not afford private dental insurance and he did not receive any care. By Saturday he was having emergency surgery because an abscess had spread to his brain. A few weeks later he died. $80 would have paid for a simple tooth extraction and saved his life.

-In December of 2007, 17-year-old Nataline Sarkiyan succumbed to a long battle with liver cancer because her insurance company initially refused to pay. When a new liver that would have saved her life became available Cigna, her insurance company, took her off the liver transplant list not once, but twice and purposely waited until literally hours before her death to approve the transplant because they didn’t want to pay for her after-care.

-David Williams, a 58-year-old Vietnam Veteran and guitarist for Madonna, Michael Jackson, Jessica Simpson, Lionel Richie and Van Halen suffering from complications related to high blood pressure, collapsed and was taken to Sentara Hospital in Hampton, Virginia only a few months ago. He slipped into a coma and the hospital urged his wife, Deborah to pull the plug because he had no medical insurance. She very publicly complained about the hospital’s callous actions: “During this very difficult time where our focus should be on the nurturing and care of David, we are battling with hospital officials just to get and maintain the care he deserves, a hospital whose main interest lies in his ability to pay for his care.” He passed away on March 6th.

-Just this month Fred Holliday, 39, succumbed to kidney cancer in his home. He probably had had the disease for years, but with no health insurance, he couldn’t afford the tests that might have explained the night sweats, fatigue and bloody urine. By the time he finally got a job that came with health coverage and got the tests he needed, it was too late: the cancer had spread and was inoperable. On August 31st, his widow and two young children will tragically lose the health coverage that Mr. Holliday works so hard to attain. His dying wish was for his wife Regina to “go after them” and that is exactly what she is doing.

If I have done my job, you should understand fully that the health insurance giants are the true villains, not government-provided insurance, which has had a great deal of success in providing our seniors with the coverage they deserve through Medicare. No one should be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition, or forced to pay premiums that cause families to decide between food, shelter or health insurance. We must continue to fight for a public option. Let your federal lawmakers know that they will not have your vote in 2010 and beyond unless they control costs and provide a viable alternative to private insurance. Fight with these families and others who lost loved ones simply because they could not afford to care for them. Do not let anyone you care about become one of the thousands sentenced to die because of corporate greed.