The Economist said the phrase was used as an "outrageous allegation" to confront politicians at town hall meetings during the August 2009 congressional recess.[54] The New York Times said the term became a standard slogan among many conservatives opposed to the Obama administration’s health care overhaul.[22] Former Newsweek editor Jon Meacham said it was "a lie crafted to foment opposition to the president's push for reform"[55] and Fox News analyst Juan Williams said "of course there is no such thing as any death panel."[56] The Christian Science Monitor reported that some Republicans used the term as a "jumping-off point" to discuss government rationing of health care services, while some liberal groups applied the term to private health insurance companies.[57] Journalist Paul Waldman of The American Prospect called the "death panel" charge a consequential policy lie, a falsehood about a policy that had definite effects on the policy, a type of lie that is not as condemned in the media as personal lies.[58]

The right-leaning British paper, The Daily Telegraph noted that some critics of the U.S. reform used the United Kingdom's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)—"as an example of [doing] the sort of drug rationing that amounted to a 'death panel'". NICE, as one of its functions, uses cost-effectiveness analysis to determine whether new treatments and drugs should be available to those covered by Britain's National Health Service [59] The Sunday Times, a British paper owned by Rupert Murdoch, wrote that Sarah Palin's use of the "death panels" term was a reference to NICE.




Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) stated that "death panels" were a baseless charge that unnecessarily incited fear and detracted from real problems in the proposed legislation.[67] She said the proposed legislation was "bad enough that we don't need to be making things up". Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), thought there was illogical confusion over "death panels"; he said advance directives put "authority in the individual rather than the government."[68] In July 2010 Rep. Bob Inglis, (R-SC) said that he thought it was counterproductive for the conservative movement for some to promote misinformation about death panels when they do not exist.[69] Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) endorsed Rep. Charles Boustany's statement that "medical panels of people who care about what's best for their patients ... is good science and good medicine."[70] Speaking for himself, Issa said "Republicans have to step back from the words 'death panels'."[70] Michael F. Cannon, a former domestic policy analyst for the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee and a member of the Cato Institute, wrote that "[p]aying doctors to help seniors sort out their preferences for end-of-life care is consumer-directed rationing, not bureaucratic rationing."

The Nazis did say they learnt how to make a big lie from American politicians