Bill Akins achieved his 15 minutes of fame — and, he says, death threats — after a clip of him making this statement at a Florida town hall went viral. The audience immediately hooted him down, and he responded by saying, “Okay, children. All right, children.”

In 2009, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin first promoted the idea that the emerging law contained death panels, referring to a provision that would allow Medicare to pay for doctor’s appointments for patients to discuss living wills and other end-of-life issues. Her Facebook post making this claim ignited a firestorm that resulted in the language being removed from the final legislation. In 2011, the Obama administration even deleted all references to end-of-life planning in a new Medicare regulation when opponents interpreted the moveas a backdoor effort to allow such planning.

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Since the death-panel issue supposedly had been eliminated, the Fact Checker reached out to Akins to find out why he thought it was still relevant. He responded that he had conflated two pieces of information, and so had bungled his comment. Here’s what he says he was trying to say.

The Facts

Akins spoke up at a town hall event hosted by Rep. Gus M. Bilirakis (R-Fla.). Akins said the session had been packed with Democrats, eager to confront the lawmaker over plans to repeal Obamacare. Akins, who is secretary of the Pasco County Republican Executive Committee, rose to pose his own question. He said he was not speaking as a GOP official, but identified himself because others at the meeting had given