Mark Halperin tells conservative host that death panels are 'built in' to Obamacare

Mark Halperin, an analyst for Time magazine and MSNBC, insisted to a conservative news outlet this week that "death panels" were "built in" to President Barack Obama's health care reform law, even though the notion had been repeatedly debunked by fact-checking organizations.

During the Monday interview, Newsmax TV host Steve Malzberg noted that the death panels "would be coming."

Halperin agreed that it was going to be a "huge issue" and that the president had not told the truth about health care rationing.

"So, you believe there will be rationing, a.k.a 'death panels'?" Malzberg pressed.

"It's built into the plan," Halperin asserted. "It's not like a guess or like a judgment. That's going to be part of how costs are controlled."

The fact checking organization PolitiFact deemed "death panels" to be the "Lie of the Year" in 2009 after Fox News contributor Sarah Palin said that her "baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's ‘death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."

Update (2:45 p.m. ET): In a tweet on Tuesday, Halperin argued that he never said that there were "death panels" in the Affordable Care Act.

In Mon intv I did not say "death panels" nor do I believe ACA contains them. Was speaking of political/policy challenge of IPAB cuts. My bad

— Mark Halperin (@MarkHalperin) November 26, 2013

Howard Dean: "The IPAB is essentially a health-care rationing body." Again, not endorsing that view, but shows coming political challenge

— Mark Halperin (@MarkHalperin) November 26, 2013

Watch the video below from Newsmax, broadcast Nov. 25, 2013.

(h/t: Talking Points Memo)