Jimmy Kimmel Delivers Powerful, Personal Message About Obamacare
“If your baby is going to die and it doesn’t have to, it shouldn’t matter how much money you make.”
On his show Monday night, Jimmy Kimmel delivered a personal and emotional story about the importance of protecting Obamacare. Kimmel told the audience about his newborn baby boy William John Kimmel—Billy for short.
Kimmel said everything seemed fine until the nurse noticed something was wrong. Kimmel then went through an emotional story about finding out his son Billy has two heart defects. Billy was rushed to to Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, where they successfully performed successful open heart surgery.
Throughout the story, Kimmel regularly broke into tears recounting his family’s experience.
Kimmel then turned to the importance of protecting Obamacare.
“We were brought up to believe that we live in the greatest country in the world,” Kimmel said. “But until a few years ago, millions and millions of us had no access to health insurance at all. You know, before 2014, if you were born with congenital heart disease like my son was, there’s a good chance you’d never be able to get health insurance, because you had a pre-existing condition.”
Kimmel continued saying that if your parents didn’t have insurance, “You may not even live long enough to get denied because of your pre-existing condition.”
“If your baby is going to die and it doesn’t have to, it shouldn’t matter how much money you make,” Kimmel said emotionally. “I think that’s something that whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or something else, we all agree on that, right?”
“We need to make sure that the people who represent us, and people are meeting about this right now in Washington, understand that very clearly. Let’s stop with the nonsense. This isn’t football. There are no teams. We are the team. It’s the United States. Don’t let their partisan squabbles divide us on something every decent person wants.”
“We need to take care of each other,” Kimmel said through tears. “No parent should ever have to decide if they can afford to save their child’s life. It just shouldn’t happen. Not here.”
