Obama on "Death Panels" - "An Extraordinary Lie"

On a conference call President Obama conducted with leaders and members of the progressive religious left, he said some Americans are "bearing false witness" in the debate over health care reform.

Using the strongest words of his presidency, Obama labeled the allegation that Democrats were seeking to create so-called deaths panels "an extraordinary lie."

Here's the full quote.

"I don't want government bureaucrats meddling in your health care but I don't want insurance company bureaucrats meddling in your health care, either. And that's what health insurance reform is all about. We are closer to achieving that reform than we have ever been and that's why we're seeing some of the divisive and deceptive attacks. You've heard some of them. Ludicrous ideas. Let me give you just one example, this notion that somehow we are setting up death panels that would decide whether elderly people would live or die. That is just an extraordinary lie. This is based on a provision in the House legislation that would allow Medicare to reimburse you if you wanted counseling on how to set up a living will or other end-of-life decisions. Entirely voluntary. It gives you an option that people who can afford fancy lawyers can already exercise."

The "death panel" allegation was first leveled by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Numerous fact-check organizations have labeled the terminology false and misleading.

But even lawmakers who disagree with Palin's characterization, do not consider the House language on end-of-life counseling purely voluntary and analysts such as Charles Lane have said a debate about the scope of the House's intended intervention on this turf is not only valid but politically crucial.

Read Lane here:

And if you want to read through the relevant section of the House bill, the entire bill is here

The relevant section is 1233 of the pending House bill.