Ex ante, it is rare to know when it is coming, but for the aged:
The main argument we make is that existing theoretical and empirical analysis of the value of life do not apply, and often under-values, the value of life near its end and terminal care. We argue that several factors drive up the value of life near its end including the low opportunity cost of medical spending near ones death, the value of hope including living into new innovations, and the potential positive effect of on the value of life from being frail. We calibrate the ex-post value of hope associated with treatments for HIV patients to be as much as four times as high as standard per-capita estimates of treatment effects and as many as two and a half times as high as aggregate values across all cohorts.
In other words, the government death panels would (have been?) let too many people die unless they reconsider this line of thinking. Of course, if people were free to make their own choices and spend their own resources, the point would be moot.
