In January 2014, when the Obamacare rollout was beset by bugs, Jimmy Kimmel joined in the mockery. He also ran a fictitious ad depicting an older couple thanking young adults for “paying for our drugs.”
What a difference three years — and a sick child — makes.
On Monday night, the late-night comic broke character and talked about the recent birth of his son, Billy, born with a heart murmur and turning purple.
“Struggling to get through the story as he choked up repeatedly, Kimmel talked about what might have happened if he didn’t have insurance and were put in that situation,” The Washington Post recounted.
Kimmel said: “Before 2014, if you were born with congenital heart disease like my son was, there was a good chance you would never be able to get health insurance because you had a preexisting condition.
“If your baby is going to die, and it doesn’t have to, it shouldn’t matter how much money you make. I think that’s something now, whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, or something else, we all agree on that, right?”
He continued: “Whatever your party, whatever you believe, whoever you support, we need to make sure that people who are supposed to represent us — and people who 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.”
He concluded: “I saw a lot of families there, and no parent should ever have to decide if they can afford to save their child’s life. It just shouldn’t happen. Not here.”
The Post said the monologue “emotionally digs at the central debate over the GOP’s Obamacare replacement right now. And the fact is that Republicans are considering whether to vote for something that would scale back protections for preexisting conditions.”