Had these outbursts occurred in 2010 to visibly dispute the Republican Obamacare lies including the death panel fallacy, Democrats would not have lost the House in 2010 and there would be no Donald Trump.
Death Panel lie resurrected
The Republicans are losing the Obamacare battle. Resorting to the debunked death panel untruth is probative. It is evident most now know the truth.
Congressman Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) held his town hall recently. Bill Akins, the secretary of The Pasco County Republican Party, appeared on stage and repeated a debunked lie.
“Here’s the problem I have with the Affordable Healthcare Act,” said Bill Akins. Number one, there is a provision in there that anyone over the age of 74 has to go before what is effectively a death panel. Yes, they do, yes they do, it’s in there folks.”
The audience erupted with boos and shouting. To be clear, Obamacare does not have any death panel. In fact, according to PoliFact the following is true.
Sarah Palin falsely claims Barack Obama runs a ‘death panel’
The health reform bill being considered in the House of Representatives says that a Comparative Effectiveness Research Center shall “conduct, support, and synthesize research” that looks at “outcomes, effectiveness, and appropriateness of health care services and procedures in order to identify the manner in which diseases, disorders, and other health conditions can most effectively and appropriately be prevented, diagnosed, treated, and managed clinically.”
The idea here, which Obama and his budget director Peter Orszag have discussed many times, is to make it easier for doctors, health care workers, insurance companies and patients to find out which treatments are the most effective, as determined by clinical studies and other research.
Obama has said he believes a comparative effectiveness commission should advise health care workers, not require them to follow certain treatments.
We’ve looked at the inflammatory claims that the health care bill encourages euthanasia. It doesn’t. There’s certainly no “death board” that determines the worthiness of individuals to receive care.
Later on, Akins was confronted by one of Bilirakis constituents. He called Akins a liar pointing out that the statement was long debunked.