House Speaker Paul Ryan held a CNN town hall Thursday evening and was met with a cold dose of reality. Here's Jeff Jeans, a Republican who worked on the Reagan and Bush campaigns, and a small business owner who initially opposed Obamacare.
"Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, I’m standing here today alive," he said. "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?"
Ryan responded: "Oh, we wouldn’t do that, we want to replace it with something better. First of all, I'm glad you're standing here."
Jeans then took to the mic again to thank President Obama.
"I want to thank President Obama from the bottom of my heart, because I would be dead if it weren’t for him," he said.
Ryan remained unfazed, first lying to Mr. Jeans by saying they'll replace it with "something better." That. Will. Not. Happen. Then Ryan went on to "explain" that Obamacare is in a death spiral.
"The problem with Obamacare—the actuary is called a ‘death spiral,'" he said. "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." He told Mr. Jean that that's what's happening with Obamacare, which is a lie. Enrollment numbers are going up and the system is not collapsing. That's just the reality.
But it’s a reality Ryan is callously denying. Here's the truth: he and his fellow Republicans are trying to take Mr. Jean's health insurance away. They're doing that without a plan in place to save his insurance, and potentially save his life. They've had six years to create a plan. If they don't have one by now, they're not going to have one. And Paul Ryan is going to own the consequences.