One talking point repeated over and over again by Republican lawmakers hoping to repeal and replace Obamacare is that the Better Care Reconciliation Act, which stands to leave 22 million more Americans uninsured while delivering a hearty tax break to the wealthy, actually gives Americans the freedom to choose their insurance, rather than being compelled to participate in Obamacare. One such elected official sticking to this rhetoric is Senate Republican majority whip John Cornyn.

On Thursday, Cornyn tweeted a Wall Street Journal op-ed, entitled “How Many Jobs Does Obamacare Kill?” What happened next is instructive. Mic editor Emily Singer highlighted the senator’s tweet and added, “Apparently to Cornyn, he views 22 million people losing health care as a fair trade for maybe 250K jobs.” Cornyn’s response: “Not lose, choose. Apparently you believe freedom is optional.”

Cornyn’s position is an emerging talking point among defenders of the Better Care Reconciliation Act. But the Congressional Budget Office’s assessment of the Senate Republicans’ bill reveals the claim is essentially a lie. From the report: “few low-income people would purchase any plan.” Not simply because they don’t want to, but because they can’t afford to, especially given the expectation that premiums on reasonably high-quality insurance (so-called “silver plans”) are likely to increase for all Americans under the Republican plan.

Subsidies that currently make health care affordable for millions of the poor, elderly, and those with pre-existing conditions, would be reduced under the bill, and Medicaid, which President Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to protect, also stands to be slashed by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 10 years. Other Republican lawmakers have used Cornyn’s “freedom” argument, too. “If you’re not going to force people to buy something they don’t want, then they won’t buy it,” House Speaker Paul Ryan told Fox News. “So it’s not that people are getting pushed off a plan. It’s that people will choose not to buy something they don’t like or want.” Wyoming Senator John Barrasso told reporters that uninsured individuals “were not actually losing insurance.” He added, “because it’s a free country, they would choose, because we eliminate the individual mandate, to not buy insurance.”

Naturally, this didn’t sit well with many on Twitter, who took issue with the Republican argument.

One national poll conducted in 2015 found that 26 percent of uninsured responders said that Obamacare’s individual mandate made them more likely to buy health coverage themselves, and nearly 8 in 10 uninsured responders said they couldn’t afford a plan. As Senate Republicans inch toward repealing Obamacare, some, like Cornyn, are doubling down in an effort to assure the American people that, yes, 22 million more people will soon be uninsured—but they’ll have the ability to exercise their freedom to choose their insurance plan, instead of having to fall under the mandate. Nothing more American than having the freedom to pay for your own insurance coverage—or, in the case of many Americans, not be able to afford coverage at all.