Jimmy Kimmel returned to his ABC late night show Monday night and showed off son Billy, after taking off the previous week following Billy’s latest heart surgery.
“Look, he’s fine everybody!” Kimmel crowed.
Kimmel thanked last week’s guest hosts and the doctors and nurses at Children’s Hospital in LA who treat children from all income levels, “whose health is especially threatened right now because of something you probably never heard of called CHIP,” the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
The program covers around 9M kids whose parents make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but who don’t have affordable health care through their jobs. About one in eight children in the U.S. are covered by the program, which has not been a partisan issue, until now, when CHIP funding expired as Republicans try to get “tax cuts for their millionaire and billionaire donors,” Kimmel said.
“So, parents of children with cancer, diabetes, and heart problems are about to get letters saying their coverage could be cut off. Merry Christmas, right?” he snarked.
“Imagine getting that letter, not knowing if you’ll be able to afford to save your children’s life,” Kimmel added. “This is not a hypothetical; about 2 M CHIP kids have serious chronic conditions.”
“I don’t know about you but I’ve had enough of this,” an exasperated Kimmel told viewers. “I don’t know what could be more disgusting than putting a tax cut that mostly goes to the rich ahead of the lives of children.”
He urged his audience to jam House and Senate phone lines and demand CHIP funding, directing them to call 202-225-3121.
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