Jimmy Kimmel's baby son helps write health care monologue

David Canfield
Updated
Jimmy Kimmel's baby son helps write health care monologue

Looks like Graham-Cassidy isn’t passing the Jimmy Kimmel Test, either.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Jimmy Kimmel Live host teased on Twitter that he’d have some harsh words for the Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill currently circulating in the Senate. “Billy’s helping me write tonight’s monologue,” he wrote, with an adorable picture of his son on his lap. “I’ll give our thoughts on the #GrahamCassidy health ‘care’ bill.”

Kimmel, relatively apolitical as a late-night host, made waves back in May when he made an unexpected emotional plea on his show, discussing the birth of his son by way of making a passionate case for pre-existing condition coverage.

“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,” he said on the show. “You were born with a pre-existing condition. If your parents didn’t have medical insurance, you might 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. I think that’s something that whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or something else, we all agree on that, right? We do.”

In the months since the monologue, pundits and observers have regularly referred to “The Jimmy Kimmel Test” as a method of assessing various healthcare legislation proposals, referring specifically to the Affordable Care Act protections that helped save Kimmel’s son. Kimmel himself shared a Jennifer Rubin editorial on Monday which argued that Graham-Cassidy did not pass the “test.”

Senator Bill Cassidy, co-sponsor of the new bill, told Kimmel in May that he’d only support legislation that would ensure a child such as Kimmel’s would have health coverage. However, as Rubin argues, the bill’s “few restrictions on how states reconstitute their own system” indicate that the bill “doesn’t remotely pass” the Jimmy Kimmel Test.

As for what else Kimmel has to say on the matter: We’ll have to wait up and see.