Of course they’ll try to gin up something else. For instance, I saw two “new” things since yesterday: the first had to do with military health care being affected – naturally, it’s specifically and explicitly exempted in proposals, while the second had to do with home health nurses – according to that article, an approach akin to “death panels” is being tried (i.e., they’re totally making shit up).
The point, again, is that reimbursements for end of life consultations is a great idea, but not vital to reform. What’s vital is structural changes; the reimbursements are just a nice feature. Equating them with “death panels” has gained meme power, however, whose infectious power has reached outside the core idiots who are against reform and always will be against reform (for whatever reason). So, I say drop it and force a regrouping; perhaps doing so will provide a slight inoculation against the next one, or the next one may be handled a bit better, or even simply never gain traction at all.
Succinctly: when someone is simply throwing shit at the wall and some of it sticks, the best solution may just be to wipe the wall clean.