I never associated the “death panel” comment as relating to this “end of life counseling” provision. I associated it with the rationing of care that is bound to happen (and already does with Medicare) under a socialized system.

The “death panel” is the group that makes the standards of what gets covered and what does not. For example, in order to qualify for hospitalization coverage for an infection under Medicare there is a standard that must be met, including things like body temperature. If someone is denied coverage because they do not meet the standard and subsequently is sent home and suffers from complications of the infection… you get the idea.

In the above case, “death panel” is certainly hyperbole, but the whole idea of the thing is that if public resources for health care were scarce, that care for the elderly would suffer, is hardly fiction.

Quoting Mr. Krauthammer:

And when you include it in a health-care reform whose major objective is to bend the cost curve downward, you have to be a fool or a knave to deny that it’s intended to gently point the patient in a certain direction, toward the corner of the sickroom where stands a ghostly figure, scythe in hand, offering release.