Under Obama's health care reform, critics say, "death panels" will decide who gets to live and who gets to die. Unfortunately, this scare tactic could mean no funding for a program many Catholics seem to think important: hospice care.

In theory at least, Catholics like to look at death as a natural part of life, as a point of transition and not an end. But at the same time, we all want to be alive, and death can be scary.