When the government is in charge of health care, rationing happens, and some people are handed death sentences. The ObamaCare Left would prefer that this reality remain hidden for as long as possible, submerged in a warm bath of "healthcare for everyone" sentiment, but Sarah Palin eloquently summed up the actuality with the expression "death panels."

Here is how it works in the Mother of All Nationalized Healthcare Systems. From Jenny Hope of the UK Daily Mail:

Pensioners with cancer are being written off as too old to treat, campaigners said yesterday.

They cited figures showing survival rates for British patients aged 75 and over are among the worst in Europe.

Young lung cancer sufferers are only 10 per cent more likely to die within five years than their continental counterparts. 

But pensioners with the disease have 44 per cent less chance of survival. 

The figure for stomach cancer - at 45 per cent - is even worse. 

And Britons with prostate cancer are a fifth less likely to survive than Europeans if they are 85 and over. 

Just 43 per cent live for five years, compared with up to 67 per cent over the Channel. 

Patients in their 70s and 80s with kidney cancer have a 32 per cent survival rate, compared with 46-53 per cent in Europe.

Ciarán Devane, of Macmillan Cancer Support, which helped produce the figures, said: 'It's wrong to write off older people as too old for treatment. With a proper assessment and appropriate treatment, our research shows that many older cancer patients can live for a long time and can even be cured. 

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the principal architects of ObamaCare, agrees in principle with the idea that fewer years of "useful" life left means that fewer dollars should be invested in care. President Obama, when asked in a town hall format about an elderly patient with a strong will to live who might need expensive treatment, responded that "a pill" might be the only treatment offered.

Needless to say, Zeke Emanuel, Barack Obama, and Nancy Pelosi would never place themselves under such a regime. They can pay for whatever treatment they want because they are rich and well-connected. Death panels and their functional equivalents are for the little people, the ones they pose as champions of.