We know from personal experience that Sarah Palin's comments about government "Elderly Death Panels" are an outrageous lie.  It is, in fact, the private HMO's and insurance carriers who are the "Elderly Death Panels" not the government.  The federal government is, in fact, the angel for the elderly!

In 2006, my 89 year old father-in-law had very low sodium levels, making him very, very ill.  Test proved it was NOT of the type caused by diet.  A medical Website indicated it could be caused by over 25 underlying conditions However, Kaiser was refusing to run very few, if any, tests to determine the underlying cause of the condition. Only after my brother-in-law filed a formal complaint with Medicare and Medicare ruled his care was inadequate did Kaiser get moving on running more tests.  Medicare has very strict regulations which allow ANY person 65 years or older to file complaints against HMO's and private insurance carriers for denying care to the elderly and these laws are enforced.  My father-in-law lived another year and a half after Kaiser was forced to give him additional treatment. 

In 1996, Kaiser did something very similar to my father-in-laws wife, my husband's step mother.  She had a rare form of lung cancer which could be put into remission but not cured.  Kaiser refused to treat her using the argument "it was not worth the cost."  She was in her early eighties at the time.  Only after my husband threatened to sue Kaiser did Kaiser finally treat her.  She lived another two years after treatment and died of complications from Alzheimer's disease, not of lung cancer. 

We have talked to other elderly people and the above incidences are quite routine.  HMO's and private insurance carriers refuse to treat the elderly because it is viewed as "not worth the cost."  Far from being the perpetrator, Medicare regulations, i.e. the federal government, have, in fact, tried to prevent these abuses.  I think the insurance carriers know that if health care reform goes through, Medicare will enforce regulations protecting the elderly even more aggressively and this will cost the carriers money!