Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) decided to skip the in-person town hall meetings this week. So his constituents figured out his schedule, and took the town meeting to him, as chronicled by Dave Weigel on Twitter. Things got heated, fast, as the crowd wanted to confront him about a variety of things, looking at all the signs in the crowd, but particularly climate change and Obamacare.
He's telling the crowd "it's time to change" Obamacare, "and bring back insurance that actually empowers you, actually empowers you and not Washington, DC." He has a hard time actually getting that sentence out over the crowd's shouts of "Lies!" He was really committed to the lying part, not just telling the crowd "our plan intends to bring back insurance that's affordable" (there isn't a plan in the first place) and this one, on Medicaid and what’s going to happen to rural hospitals.
The question is a smart one—repealing Obamacare and killing the Medicaid expansion, turning it into a block grant—would be devastating to rural hospitals that rely on that funding. Jordan not only refuses to answer that question, he says that "defunding Planned Parenthood would free up money for them," as Weigel paraphrases.
No. Just no. Defunding Planned Parenthood means taking away their Medicaid reimbursements (that's where a big chunk of federal funding for Planned Parenthood comes from). Which means taking Medicaid away from the people who use Planned Parenthood. But basically, it's cutting Medicaid! The people who use it to go to Planned Parenthood also use it for treatment at hospitals and they're not going to have it go there, either.
Weigel pressed Jordan on this, and he "acknowledged that more stuff would have to be cut to cover the funding." More stuff wouldn't have to be cut if Medicaid funding was maintained and if all the states expanded it! That's how this stuff works! Which Jordan either completely doesn't know (which wouldn't be too much of a surprise) or is completely willing to lie about (which also wouldn't be much of a surprise).
But at least he was willing to talk to voters and lie directly to their faces. That's more than can be said of most of his counterparts.