(I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but...)
The "death panel" will probably go through the usual dishonest liberal "conscious changing" spiel. First, a flat denial that anybody is suggesting such a thing, calling it Republican propaganda; then a few trial baloons (such as Krugman's claim, or Newsweek's infamous cover story, "The Case for Killing Granny"); then working hard to convince the "right thinking progressives" that death panels are the only "rational" and "scientifically based" choice; and, once the bien pensants are openly for it, massive propaganda that anybody who dares disagree is backward, stupid, emotional, ignoring the facts, etc., etc., etc.
This is what was done with gay marriage, for example. First when gay unions were proposed, those who suggested it swore up and down they will not ask for marriage and said that those who say so are bigots or paranoid. Then "trial baloons" about gay marriage were proposed, those who proposed them being hailed as "brave" and "groundbreaking" in their suggestions. Then the next step was to try and force it through the courts and to declare anybody who disagrees is evil; and the next step is to begin to establish it as an natural, indeed utterly conventional, "fact" that marriage is unrelated to sex.
Sometimes, the issue promoted perhaps deserved such dishonesty about one's real goals (e.g., the civil rights movement had to hide its real goal was total equality); sometimes the dishonesty serves causes that are at best doubtful (e.g., gay marriage); sometimes, as in the case of "death panels", it serves an horrific end. But even when the goal is worthwhile, such a process has three serious downsides.
1). It's really an attempt at dictatorship of thought, at a small group of "progressives" deliberately perverting the will of the majority, whose views it holds in utter contempt. This is known as "activism", and held in high regard by those who see themselves as immensely superior to the unwashed masses.
2). Perhaps some would be willing to suffer such a dictatorship as long as it is benign, as long as the right-thinking folks are, in fact, right in their thinking. Unfortunately such "activism", as Burke noted, doesn't want to do away with what society wrongly forbids; it wants to do away with everything society forbids, seeing all previous taboos or restrictions as based on ignorance. It doesn't differentiate between taboos which should be changed, like the one against race mixing, and those who should not, like that against murder (ooops, I'm sorry -- "euthenasia", I mean "eugenics", I mean "mercy killing", I mean "death panels").
The very fact that society forbids something or, while permitting it, sees it as undesireable (e.g., prostitution) is something that should be broken. That there might be a good reason for prostitution being held in low regard -- it is demeaning and dehumanizing to both sides -- is brushed aside as "unscientific". For the "progressive", taboos as such are taboo.
3). The third disadvantage is that those who suffer the consequences are never the right-thinking folks themselves, the upper classes; it's always the lower classes. If prostitution is just fine, no different from any other job, why should a poor girl avoid it and instead go for a menial, unsatisfying job, instead? It is practically never tempting for the college-educated upper-class "right-thinking" girl to become a prostitute, so the loss of stigma and disapproval will not make her more likely to become one -- no skin off her nose.
So, the poor, uneducated girl becomes a prostitute, and thus becomes a drug-addicted wreck who wishes she were dead by 25. But hey -- it's all society's fault for "stigmatizing" prostitution in the first place! Thus the obvious failure of the "right-thinking" folks is merely seen as more proof how correct they are, and besides, you can't make the omlette of that all-important goal, "destigmatizing prostitution", without breaking some eggs. Hey, it's nobody they know, so who cares?
You can bet your behind that when "death panles" become the norm, the same folks -- like Krugman -- who are for them will never themselves face such a panel. It will always be the poor, the uneducated, and other unimportant, dispensable folks who will be executed by them.
To sum up:
So, while it's true nobody yet suggested death panels in Obamacare, once healthcare is safely (?) in the hands of the "right-thinking progressives" instead of the "greedy insurance companies", there probably will be. This is what the Republicans and people like Sarah Palin are saying, and -- experience shows -- they are, unfortunately, usually correct. They just know the dishonest way the "progressive activists" always work to advance their goals.
