(AJC) — This morning, my colleague Jay Bookman had a very thoughtful post on why rationing health care — “death panels,” if you will — is quite necessary. I wrote on a similar subject in my Sunday column.

If we keeping spending our health care dollars disproportionately on the elderly, we will have little left to spend on children. That makes for an upside-down society that cannot thrive for long.

Flashback: It took me all of five minutes to dig up this column by Tucker in 2009 where she denounces Sarah Palin’s “lies” about death panels.

(AJC) — At long last, a few responsible Republicans are chastising their conservative colleagues for the distortions, exaggerations and outright lies they have used to denounce healthcare reform. (It’s too bad that Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson, usually a thoughtful and fairminded man, cannot be counted in that number. But, according to my colleague Jay Bookman, he can’t.)

The Anchorage Daily News reported that Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski spoke at a public policy forum in Anchorage yesterday, where she rebuked the “deathers,” such as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who have insisted that “death panels” would be created to decide whether to euthanize the elderly and the handicapped.

The newspaper quoted Murkowski this way: “It does us no good to incite fear in people by saying that there’s these end-of-life provisions, these death panels. Quite honestly, I’m so offended at that terminology because it absolutely isn’t (in the bill). There is no reason to gin up fear in the American public by saying things that are not included in the bill.”

It’s reassuring to know there are a few Republicans who are still willing to act as the loyal and honest opposition. None of the bills working there way through Congress are perfect; there is certainly legitimate criticism. Why not stick with that?