It’s about time that the left finally gets what’s going on with ObamaCare, but I have to say it took them long enough! Obama may be trying to hide the fact that he aims to save money by pushing the elderly and terminally ill out the door but it is blatantly obvious from the bills that are before Congress and from the stimulus bill that’s already been signed into law (as Henoff notes):

I was not intimidated during J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI hunt for reporters like me who criticized him. I railed against the Bush-Cheney war on the Bill of Rights without blinking. But now I am finally scared of a White House administration. President Obama’s desired health care reform intends that a federal board (similar to the British model) — as in the Center for Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation in a current Democratic bill — decides whether your quality of life, regardless of your political party, merits government-controlled funds to keep you alive. Watch for that life-decider in the final bill. It’s already in the stimulus bill signed into law.

The members of that ultimate federal board will themselves not have examined or seen the patient in question. For another example of the growing, tumultuous resistance to “Dr. Obama,” particularly among seniors, there is a July 29 Washington Times editorial citing a line from a report written by a key adviser to Obama on cost-efficient health care, prominent bioethicist Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel).
Emanuel writes about rationing health care for older Americans that “allocation (of medical care) by age is not invidious discrimination.” (The Lancet, January 2009) He calls this form of rationing — which is fundamental to Obamacare goals — “the complete lives system.” You see, at 65 or older, you’ve had more life years than a 25-year-old. As such, the latter can be more deserving of cost-efficient health care than older folks.

If you have a parent or grandparent on Medicare with chronic disease (what senior citizen doesn’t have a chronic disease? Very few, I’m sure), this is a really fearful piece of legislation.
Here’s the money quote:

“Remember that legislation itself is only half the problem with Obamacare. Whatever bill passes, hundreds of bureaucrats in the federal agencies will have years to promulgate scores of regulations to govern the details of the law.

And anyone who has dealt with the IRS knows what it’s like to deal with a federal bureaucrat. I certainly wouldn’t want my life in their hands.
Go read the rest of the article because he recaps all that there is to fear in this legislation and the reason for the number of seniors at these town hall meetings. Any seniors who will be attending a town hall meeting, ask your representative about the death panel language in the stimulus bill that’s already been signed into law.
Update: Here’s the article from Betsy McCaughey on the language of the stimulus bill that sets up a council that controls what your treatments are appropriate:

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.
But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”