Death Panels and repugnancy separable from irrationality and inefficiency concerns

Why are Death Panels repugnant -separate from concerns about irrationality and inefficiency? I have some ideas, I'll try to tease this out, in coordination with commenters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deather

"The idiom "Deather" was born in the summer of 2009 and was fomented by Vice Presidential challenger Sara Palin. Mrs. Palin first injected the concept of Deather into the public consciousness on August 9th 2009 when she claimed the Democratic party's healthcare reform plan would include Death Panels (also known as "Obama Death Panel"). These Panels would put the elderly, Palin's youngest child (a Special Needs child), and scientist Stephen Hawking (a quadriplegic) in mortal danger. Palin's commentary about an "Obama Death Panel" aroused the ire of many Americans who came to believe Democratic health care reform would include mandate on insurers of healthcare and healthcare facilitators to forcibly euthanize both the elderly and the unborn within certain criteria.

A Deather is someone who subscribes to the idea that any Democratic healthcare reform would include government mandate to destroy terminally ill or very old persons receiving healthcare (the vernacular phrase "to kill Grandma") and/or to destroy a fetus if either of is deemed by such a Panel to not be worth keeping alive based on their "contribution to society at large". Terminally ill or very old persons would (according to Deather theory) be required to undergo a Federal evaluation of their care with examination of their future worth as opposed to the monetary cost of keeping them alive. A fetus developing with illness or congenital defect would also be examined by the Obama Death Panel under the same regulation. The mother would then be mandated to have an abortive procedure if the future worth of the fetus in society was not determined by the Panel to be or to become significantly "contributive" to society - contributive enough to warrant the monetary provision of such care. Someone like Stephen Hawking (suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) would also be evaluated by the Obama Death Panel - deciding if care for such an individual is monetarily as valuable as that person's contribution to society as a whole. Plainly, does the cost of medically caring for such an individual equal or become surpassed by the person's ability to contribute and function within society.

In sum, Democratic-led healthcare reform (via the Obama Death Panel) would be a backdoor to government regulation of the eugenic nature of American civilization.

Although there are no provisions for such a Death Panel in the yet-unpassed legislation on healthcare reform, Deathers insist the road toward destroying the elderly and the unborn in this manner exists within the framework of the legislation due to the lack of clearly-stated language against such practices. Various Democrats such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Barack Obama have spoken out against the Deather concept and challenged the reality of such a concept, but hostilities against potential Democratic-led healthcare reform continue to grow.

The Deather movement was further promulgated by the Senior Senator from Iowa, Chuck Grassley, who followed Palin's lead and proclaimed his constituents had reasons to worry about a potential Democratic healthcare reform because such a reform is a backdoor plot to destroy the elderly. The concept of a Death Panel brought into existence by Democrat-led healthcare reform is now being used by Conservative pundits such as Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck to mobilize the Republican base and energize town hall protests against Democrats. It is only one of several issues causing mass outrage mostly directed toward any and all things Democrat currently.

Deathers are not a political faction and do not represent a specific political party. However, a Deather is more likely to be a Republican than a Democrat. The foundation of Deatherology lies in the idea that the Democratic Party is evil and their single goal is to destroy America and American values. Hence, Deathers are currently most associated or aligned with Birthers (those who do not believe President Barack Obama was born in America), KKK or Aryan Nation ideology (groups outraged over the eugenic nature of the Presidency) and Pro-Lifers (those who oppose abortion) to thwart Democratic-led healthcare reform."

Comments

[Hopefully Anonymous]

By the way, whoever wrote that post (I'm guessing it's not Steve Sailor), seems to be a decent myth synthesizer in Sailor's tradition.

[Hopefully Anonymous]

edit: Sailer, of course.

[TGGP]

James Q. Wilson had an idea along those lines.