Jimmy Kimmel and his family are going through a tough time, with their newborn son currently in between heart surgery procedures he unexpectedly needed shortly after his birth. The whole thing was a frightening ordeal that made Kimmel uncharacteristically emotional as he described it, but his own gratitude at the saving of his son’s life wasn’t his only focus.
After thanking the doctors and nurses who helped them—and a whole list of other people—Kimmel went on to talk about the politics of healthcare, praising Congress for increasing funding to the National Institutes of Health rather than cutting it as Donald Trump had wanted. He mentioned that over 40% of people who would’ve been affected by those cuts would’ve been children, including at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles where Kimmel’s son was treated.
Then, he made the point many of us keep coming back to in the healthcare debate: money shouldn’t decide who gets the healthcare they need to survive. Kimmel knows that he’s lucky to be able to afford anything his child could possibly need, but that’s not the case for everyone. When lawmakers work on healthcare legislation—as they’re doing right now with the revived attempt to pass the American Health Care Act—their focus should be on increasing care, because we should all be able to agree that “we need to take care of each other,” as Kimmel put it. If the Affordable Care Act needs work to guarantee more people more comprehensive healthcare coverage, that’s fine, but going backwards should not be an option.
(image: screengrab)
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