Kimmel discusses newborn son's heart disease
Late-night host makes passionate plea for health care.
Jimmy Kimmel opened his late-night show Monday on a very serious note.
“I have a story to tell about something that happened to our family last week,” he said on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” as he started to get choked up. “I’m sorry. You know, I try not to get emotional, but it was a scary story. And before I go into it, I want you to know it has a happy ending, OK? So when I’m telling this, don’t get too upset. Leave that to me.”
Kimmel went on to say that his wife, Molly, had given birth to their second child on April 21, a boy named Billy. Everything seemed nor-
mal at first, but then a nurse discovered that Billy had a heart murmur and noticed his skin was a bit purple. Kimmel described the terror of watching a group of very worried-looking doctors and nurses trying to figure out what was wrong with his newborn son. Eventually, they told him that Billy was born with a heart con- dition and would immedi- ately require surgery.
They took Billy in an ambu- lance to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, where he had open heart surgery.
“It was the longest three hours of my life,” Kimmel tearfully told the audience.
But the procedure went well, and six days later, he and his wife were able to take Billy home.
Kimmel thanked the doc- tors and nurses, along with his colleagues, for being so supportive, and encour- aged viewers to donate to the hospital. He threw in a few jokes and assured his wife that he’s definitely get-
ting a vasectomy. Then he switched gears, turning serious again.
“President Trump last month proposed a $6 billion cut in funding to the National Institute of Health,
and thank God our congressmen made a deal last night to not go along with that. They actually increased funding by $2 billion, and I applaud
them for doing that,” Kim- mel said. “Because more than 40 percent of the peo- ple who would have been affected by those cuts to the National Institute of Health are children.
“We were brought up to believe that we live in the greatest country in the world, but until a few years ago, millions and millions of us had no access to health insurance at all,” he added. “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 pre-ex- isting condition. You were born with a pre-existing condition, and if your parents didn’t have medical insur- ance, you might not even live long enough to get denied because of a pre-existing condition.”
He ended with a plea for both sides of the aisle in the health-care debate.
“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?” Kimmel said, as the audience applauded. “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 Wash
ington — 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 got choked up again.
“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,” he said. “It just shouldn’t happen. Not here.”I promise I’m not going to cry for the rest of the show,” he concluded.