Finally someone has set the record straight on the “death panels” and it is not about end of life counseling.  Cato’s Michael Cannon sets the record straight in this Detroit Free Press op-ed.

President Obama has proposed a new body that would enhance
Medicare?s ability to deny care to the elderly and disabled based on
government bureaucrats? arbitrary valuations of those patients? lives.


It is right there in the legislation now before Congress, and it is called the Independent Medicare Advisory Council.

In other words according to Cannon, “Palin is (partly) right.”


Yet that error hardly excuses the media?s mishandling of Palin?s ?death
panel? claim, particularly since Obama himself corroborates it. Obama?s
first pick to head his health reform efforts?former Senate Majority Tom
Daschle?proposed an IMAC-like panel despite the fact that ?doctors and
patients might resent? the panel making decisions about ?matters of
life and death.? Back in June, in response to a question about
?subjective? end-of-life decisions, President Obama said, ?I think we have to have rules.? And who would make those rules? His IMAC proposal tells us.


Lest you think this too Orwellian to become reality, consider that this
type of government rationing already happens in the United Kingdom.
Britain?s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (or
?NICE?) generally refuses to cover medical treatments that cost more than $35,000 per year of life saved.


Whatever one thinks of Sarah Palin should not distract from this truth:
President Obama proposes to let government bureaucrats decide who gets
medical care and who does not.