An old piece of Affordable Care Act mythology has come back from the dead: death panels.
A reader sent us a link to a September American News article that claims an 86-year-old woman was ordered executed after a panel established by the Affordable Care Act determined that "she is no longer useful."
"According to recent reports, a group of death panels organized under Obamacare ordered their first execution.
"Following a hearing by the president’s Patient Resource Efficiency Board (PREB), 86-year-old Dorothy Zborknak has been ordered to death. The reason? According to the administration, she is no longer useful.
"Zborknak worked at Fleur de Lis Florist in Chicago for nearly forty years, before she made the decision to retire in 1998. Since that time, she has struggled with a host of health problems, including diabetes, high blood pressure, and kidney failure.
" ‘Unfortunately, the cost of her care just became too expensive,’ claims Peter Johnston, a member of the Chicago PREB. ‘Under the Affordable Care Act, we have the power to make choices about end of life care and I stand by our ruling. I know it will be hard for the family to accept what’s going to happen…But from a financial standpoint, this was a very easy decision.’
We’ll offer a quick diagnosis: This claim is not accurate. Back in 2009, the myth of death panels was our inaugural Lie of the Year. Almost five years later, death panels are still not a part of U.S. health care law.
Our first clue that the American News article was not real was the name of the woman who was supposedly sentenced to execution: Dorothy Zborknak. That’s the name of Bea Arthur’s character on the TV show The Golden Girls. (Slightly misspelled -- it's actually Zbornak.)