Over at National Review Online, there is a bit of a debate about whether death penals is the proper term for describing the potential for government, end of life rationing of treatment.  Everyone seems to agree about the potential policy or programs that we are talking about:  a government entity that gets to dictate which treatments should (and should not) be covered under what circumstances.  The real question iswhether the term “death panels” takes it too far.  I don’t know how the politics on this shake out:  is it an effective in making people consider the gravity of granting government this kind of power or is it so over the top that it turns people off?  In my mind, I think it seems that it is probably useful to have the terminology in the public domain, but I don’t think elected officials gain anything by using it.