A Republican official in Florida is probably wishing he had stayed home instead of showing up at a town hall meeting on the Affordable Care Act in Pasco County.
The town hall was sponsored by GOP Congressman Gus Bilirakis, but it was Bill Akins, secretary of the local Republican Party, who drew the crowds ire when he told voters:
“Here’s the problem I have with the affordable healthcare act. 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.”
When members of the audience began booing and fact checking Akins, he condescendingly said to them:
“OK children, all right children.”
The death panel lie began in 2009 with the perpetually uninformed Sarah Palin. That falsehood later earned PolitiFact’s “Lie of the Year” award. As PolitiFact wrote in 2009:
“The truth is that the health bill allows Medicare, for the first time, to pay for doctors’ appointments for patients to discuss living wills and other end-of-life issues with their physicians. These types of appointments are completely optional, and AARP supports the measure.”
After the town hall had concluded, Akins got into a heated debate with a voter who told him he was a liar:
After calamitous "death panel" claims, he takes on the crowd.
"You called me a liar."
"You ARE a liar—own up to it!" pic.twitter.com/7q7BDcFTzP— Jack Smith IV (@JackSmithIV) February 11, 2017
GOP town hall meetings across the country have turned contentious over the past couple of months with voters demanding that GOP members of Congress give them specifics on how they plan to replace the Affordable Care Act and wanting to know when they will hold Donald Trump accountable for his numerous conflicts of interest involving his business holdings.
For their part, Republicans Dave Brat and Jason Chaffetz have alleged that paid protesters are being sent to town hall meetings to disrupt them. Neither has offered any evidence to support these claims.
Here’s Akins repeating the death panel lie and reaction from the audience:
A GOP official tries the "death panel" line in 2017 and opens the gates of hell. People are done with the bullshit. pic.twitter.com/0vS2rizka7
— Jack Smith IV (@JackSmithIV) February 11, 2017
This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org