You have to be a moron not to realize bureaucrats are going to decide who gets care and what kind of care and who doesn’t. In short, life and death decisions all at the hands of some faceless bureaucrat protecting his or her turf. A death panel is an accurate description.
Yes, even Democrats get it, which was why Sarah and Betsy McCaughey scored.
From the linked Politifact article, one of their own guys -- who hastened to add afterward that he thinks GOPers are lying, bigoted, mismotivated scum -- said this:
The phrase "death panels" appears to be original to Palin. A search of news databases showed no use prior to her Facebook posting. History professor Ian Dowbiggin, who has written several books on medical history, euthanasia and eugenics, said he had never heard the term before Palin used it. He said the phrase invokes images of Nazi Germany, which denied life-saving care to people who were not deemed useful enough to broader society. Adolf Hitler ordered Nazi officials to secretly register, select, and murder handicapped people such as schizophrenics, epileptics, disabled babies and other long-stay hospital patients, according to Dowbiggin.
"It's not far-fetched to make the historical argument that as you get government more and more involved in health care, you create an environment that is more hospitable to the legalization of forms of euthanasia," Dowbiggin said. "But the Nazi example should be used very advisedly."
Which is where the celebrated Rahm Emanuel bon mot, "Dead! Dead! Dead!!!" comes in (</stabbing knife into table for emphasis>).