WATCH: Paul Ryan Lies to Former ‘Life Long Republican’ Who Hated Obamacare – Until It Saved His Life

‘I Want to Thank President Obama From the Bottom of My Heart, Because I Would Be Dead if It Weren’t for Him’ Former Cancer Patient Says

Paul Ryan held a town hall, hosted by CNN Thursday night. One man stood up to ask the Republican Speaker of the House a question. What followed was an embarrassing moment, not only for Ryan, currently the most powerful elected Republican in the nation, but for all Americans, and our Democracy.

“I was a Republican and I worked for the Reagan and Bush campaigns,” Jeff Jeans of Sedona, Arizona, told Speaker Ryan. “Just like you, I was opposed to the Affordable Care Act.”

“When it was passed, I told my wife we would close our business before I complied with this law. Then, at 49, I was given six weeks to live with a very curable type of cancer. We offered three times the cost of my treatments, which was rejected. They required an insurance card. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, I’m standing here today alive,” Jeans shared with the Speaker and the audience. 

“Being both a small business person and someone with pre-existing conditions, I rely on the Affordable Care Act to be able to purchase my own insurance. Why would you repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement?” he asked.

Why indeed?

According to Ryan, there’s a replacement plan and it’s going to be terrific. 

“Oh, we — we wouldn’t do that,” Ryan told Jeans. “We want to replace it with something better. First of all, I’m glad you’re standing here. I mean, really — seriously,” Ryan added. The audience applauded.

Jeans had another comment, interrupting Ryan to make sure he could get it out: “I want to thank President Obama from the bottom of my heart, because I would be dead if it weren’t for him.”

Ryan went on to spout off a few states that, according to him, people are seeing double-digit increases in their premiums.

Now, first of all, what Ruyan didn’t mention: these are all states with Republican governors or states that had GOP governors when the Obamacare exchanges were being set up. They refused to support Obamacare, forcing the federal government to take over. States where governors embraced Obamacare aren’t seeing huge increases.

Secondly, Obamacare is not responsible for increased premiums, the insurance companies are. So why are Republicans insisting Obamacare is at fault? And why don’t they intervene to fix it?

Because they, more than anything else, want Obamacare to die.

Claiming Obamacare is “collapsing,” which is a lie, Ryan went on to tell another, on national television, misinforming hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.

“The problem with Obamacare — the actuary is called a ‘death spiral,'” Ryan lied to Jeans and the public. “It’s a really kind of ugly, gruesome term, but a death spiral is a mathematical term. They say when the insurance gets so expensive, healthy people won’t buy it because they — it’s just a trade-off. The penalty to not buy is a lot cheaper than buying the insurance, so healthy people won’t buy it; therefore, they won’t go and participate in the insurance pool to cover the losses that sicker people, who have to have insurance, buy it.”

“That’s what’s happening to Obamacare now.”

Again, that’s a lie.

That’s what’s happening to Obamacare now?

“No, it’s not,” responds Steve Benen at MSNBC’s The MaddowBlog. “This isn’t a matter of opinion; it’s a matter of reality. If the Speaker of the House is going to hold forums like these, and speak to national audiences about the state of the health care system, it’s important that he tell the public the truth.” 

And the truth is, if the ACA were in “death spiral,” we’d see declining enrollment numbers, with consumers withdrawing from the system because they can’t afford the premiums and would rather pay the penalty than buy insurance they can’t afford.

Enrollment totals, however, are going up, not down.

Despite higher premiums in parts of the country, and against a political backdrop in which Republicans are desperate to destroy the existing system, Americans are getting health care coverage through the ACA in growing numbers: we learned just this week that 11.5 million consumers bought marketplace plans in 2016, an increase of nearly 300,000 over the comparable period last year.

Just to prove his point, Benen points to a Huffington Post interview this week with Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, who said: “It seems to me that enrollment holding steady amidst tremendous uncertainty about the future of the law and big premium increases is a positive sign. There is no evidence of a market collapse or insurance death spiral.”

So, again, Paul Ryan is lying.

One last point.

The Senate at 1:25 AM (yes, AM) Thursday morning passed a resolution paving the way for the complete and total repeal of Obamacare, with zero replacement plan. Republicans also voted down saving some of the most popular parts of Obamacare, like banning insurance companies from refusing to provide insurance to people like Jeff Jeans who have a pre-existing condition. Also voted down were amendments allowing parents to keep their children on their policies until they are 26.

Right now, as we speak, House Republicans are debating the same Senate resolution to allow them to repeal Obamacare. I say House Republican are debating because the Democrats are fighting like hell to save it.

But on his website Paul Ryan promises this: “there’s going to clearly be a transition period until you can get a new and better system up and running so that people will not have that rug pulled out from under them,” Ryan claims, which frankly can be interpreted two ways. A “transition period” sounds like it could mean a period of time (days, weeks, months, years) where people will not have coverage.

Ryan goes on to say, “we’re advancing . . . legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare at the same time. And it will take time to put all of that into place . . . to get us to a better system to arrest the collapse of this system. And in that meantime, there will be transitions so that you don’t wake up one morning, you know, this year, and you lose your health insurance—that’s not going to happen.”

Paul Ryan and the GOP have been lying about Obamacare for seven years.

Why should we believe them now?