Here is the full transcript, from abcnews.com:

STURM: She’s 105 now. Over 105. But at 100 the doctor had said to her, I can’t do anything more unless you have a pacemaker. I said, go for it. She said, go for it. But the arrhythmia specialist said, no, it’s too old.

Her doctor said, I’m going to make an appointment, because a picture

is worth a thousand words. And when the other arrhythmia specialist saw

her, saw her joy of life and so on, he said, I’m going for it.

So that was over five years ago. My question to you is, outside the

medical criteria for prolonging life for somebody elderly, is there any

consideration that can be given for a certain spirit, a certain joy of

living, quality of life? Or is it just a medical cutoff at a certain age?

OBAMA: Well, first of all, I want to meet your mom.

(LAUGHTER)

OBAMA: And I want to find out what’s she’s eating.

(LAUGHTER)

OBAMA: But, look, the first thing for all of us to understand is

that we actually have some — some choices to make about how we want to

deal with our own end-of-life care.

And that’s one of the things I think that we can all promote, and

this is not a big government program. This is something that each of us

individually can do, is to draft and sign a living will so that we’re

very clear with our doctors about how we want to approach the end of life.

I don’t think that we can make judgments based on peoples’ spirit.

That would be a pretty subjective decision to be making. I think we

have to have rules that say that we are going to provide good, quality

care for all people.

GIBSON: But the money may not have been there for her pacemaker or

for your grandmother’s hip replacement.

OBAMA: Well, and — and that’s absolutely true. And end-of-life

care is one of the most difficult sets of decisions that we’re going to

have to make.

I don’t want bureaucracies making those decisions, but understand

that those decisions are already being made in one way or another. If

they’re not being made under Medicare and Medicaid, they’re being made

by private insurers.

We don’t always make those decisions explicitly. We often make

those decisions by just letting people run out of money or making the

deductibles so high or the out-of-pocket expenses so onerous that they

just can’t afford the care.

And all we’re suggesting — and we’re not going to solve every

difficult problem in terms of end-of-life care. A lot of that is going

to have to be, we as a culture and as a society starting to make better

decisions within our own families and for ourselves.

But what we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that

exists in the system that’s not making anybody’s mom better, that is

loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence

shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let

doctors know and your mom know that, you know what? Maybe this isn’t

going to help. Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but

taking the painkiller.

And those kinds of decisions between doctors and patients, and

making sure that our incentives are not preventing those good decision,

and that — that doctors and hospitals all are aligned for patient care,

that’s something we can achieve.

The AARP had better wake up – saw a clip that AARP is supporting the Health Care Plan, but the AARP representative was denying that health care was going to be rationed because the President promised it wouldn’t be. Obviously, he hasn’t read what Congress is trying to do.