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Long before the passage of the health care reform legislation commonly known as Obamacare, and continuing long afterwards, rumors have circulated claiming that the legislation mandates the creation of ethics panels (or death panels) which will determine who is deemed worthy of medical treatment, or that patients over a given age simply be denied essential medical treatment as a matter of course. The item reproduced above is another false rumor of that ilk, one which claims (citing a doctor at the Johnson City Medical Center in Tennessee as a source) that as of sometime in 2013, patients over the age of 75 will no longer be given major medical procedures unless approved by locally administered Ethics Panels. According to a representative for Johnson City Medical Center (Ed Herbert, Vice President, Mountain State Health Alliance Communications and Marketing), the substance of the message is untrue, and the related conversation did not take place as stated: No such denial is necessary to debunk this item, however. The simple fact is that, repeated spurious claims to the contrary notwithstanding, no provision of the Obamacare health care legislation mandates or authorizes the creation of ethics panels to determine which patients should or should not receive various medical treatments, based on their age or any other criteria. Dr. Jill Vecchio, a Colorado radiologist, made a similar claim (captured in a YouTube video) that women over 74 years of age would not be able to receive mammograms under Obamacare. However, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act includes no such restriction; it echoes the United States Preventive Service Task Force recommendation that breast cancer screening be performed every 1-2 years for women aged 40 and older.
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