Cancer-surviving journalist breaks down in tears in middle of MSNBC panel on AHCA

With tears streaming down her face, Xeni Jardin, a breast cancer-surviving journalist, broke down during a Thursday night interview with MSNBC's Chris Hayes while discussing the U.S. House of Representatives' narrow vote to pass the American Health Care Act.

Hours after the House GOP bill to "repeal and replace" Obamacare passed the lower chamber 217-213, Jardin pleaded for the future of the country and said that this isn't the America that she knows and loves.

“It’s not a political outcome,” an emotional Jardin told Hayes about the AHCA. “It’s a human outcome.”

She wept openly while telling Hayes that this "isn't the America that I love." She continued:

The America that I love cares about my right to life even though I’m 46 years past being a fetus. The America that I love loves diversity. It knows that children ... knows that those babies weren't born into the world with some kind of original sin that makes some of them worthy of death and the others worthy of life.

“This isn’t robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Jardin said. “This is killing Peter to pay Paul.”

She concluded, "This isn't America."

Jardin, who has worked for NPR's "Day to Day" radio show and has served as a technology commentator for CNN, MSNBC, PBS, Fox News and ABC, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011. In January, she tweeted her story about diagnosis, treatment and the benefits that Obamacare afforded her during the process. She wrote:

I was diagnosed with cancer in 2011, a few months after purchasing my first insurance policy, and leaving a violent, abusive relationship. It was the first time I had control of my finances. The first thing I did was buy insurance, so I'd feel better about riding my bike in LA. I went in for a first mammogram at 41, 12/1/2011. I was so excited that it would be covered. I was diagnosed with breast cancer that day.

Jardin revealed that during her chemotherapy treatment, she was pulled aside by a medical billing agent and told that her insurance company had opened up a fraud investigation into her medical claims, as they believed her cancer diagnosis was a pre-existing condition.

"I went in to cancer clinic bracing myself for medicine that would maybe save my life. An insurance company wanted to shut it down for fraud," she wrote.

Jardin revealed that the issue was eventually cleared up — with the help of the facility — and she was able to continue the treatment that saved her life, for which she credits Obamacare. "Eventually I was cleared. I got my treatment, I lived, I continue to get treatment so that I will continue to live. Thanks Obama," she wrote.

"This isn't the America that I love—The America that I love cares about my right to life."

—Emotional, powerful moment from @xeni on @MSNBC pic.twitter.com/u4z8xtnAEr

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 5, 2017