Posted on 05/03/2017 1:44:34 AM PDT by Kaslin
I feel your pain. But please use your brain.
On Monday, late-night TV comedian Jimmy Kimmel delivered an emotional monologue about his newborn son. His baby was born with a congenital heart defect that required emergency open-heart surgery.
Millions of American parents, myself included, have walked in Kimmel's shoes. We've experienced the terrifying roller coaster of emotions -- panic, helplessness, anger, anxiety, relief, grief and unconditional love -- that comes with raising chronically ill kids.
But Kimmel didn't use his high-profile platform to educate the public about coping with rare diseases. Or to champion the nation's best and brightest pediatric specialists and medical innovators. The Tinseltown celebrity turned his personal plight into a political weapon, which his liberal friends were all too happy to wield. Top Democrats tweeted their praise for Kimmel's advocacy of expanded government health care regulations:
"Well said, Jimmy," Barack Obama gushed.
"Thanks @jimmykimmel for sharing your story & reminding us what's at stake w/health care," Hillary Clinton effused.
The Huffington Post piled on: "Jimmy Kimmel's Humanity Underscores Heartlessness Of GOP's Approach To The Poor."
I don't need lectures from Huffington Post and Hollywood elites about having a heart. Neither do the rest of America's parents, whatever their political affiliations, who know what it's like to stay up night after endless night with suffering children, wondering whether they would ever be able to breathe normally again or see the light of the next day.
Kimmel doesn't need more maudlin Twitter suck-uppery. He needs a healthy fact-check.
"Before 2014," he claimed, "if you were born with congenital heart disease like my son was, there was a good chance you'd never be able to get health insurance because you had a pre-existing condition, you were born with a pre-existing condition."
This is false. If parents had health insurance, the child would have been covered under the parents' policy whether or not the child had a health problem.
Kimmel continued: "And if your parents didn't have medical insurance, you might not live long enough to even get denied because of a pre-existing condition."
The term "pre-existing condition" is used to describe uninsured chronically ill people who apply for insurance coverage, not for a child in need of immediate care. Moreover, in the U.S., virtually all hospitals are legally obligated to provide emergency treatment to every patient who urgently requires emergency medical care regardless of the patient's insurance status. This would include a newborn with an urgent heart condition. This requirement does not apply only to patients who enter an emergency room. It applies to all patients who set food on a hospital's property.
Kimmel then dramatically asserted: "If your baby is going to die, and it doesn't have to, it shouldn't matter how much money you make."
I repeat: It does not matter if you are rich are poor or if you are uninsured. If your baby is in the hospital, he or she will receive emergency care no matter what.
"This isn't football," Kimmel implored. "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."
Kimmel implies that opposition to Obamacare-style insurance mandates is both un-American and indecent. Had he been less hysterical, he would have acknowledged that different health care systems have pros and cons -- and decent Americans can have legitimate differences of opinion on such matters.
In the land of make-believe, it would be wonderful if everyone had free access to the same high-quality care Kimmel and his family did at Cedars-Sinai and Children's Hospital Los Angeles.
In the real world, Obamacare plans have severely curtailed the number of doctors and hospitals that customers can use. Command-and-control regulations on guaranteed issue, community rating and pre-existing conditions favored by Kimmel and company are driving up costs for everyone. Limited access to specialists and long waits have become the increasing norm -- just like that other model of government-run health care, the Veterans Affairs system, where the despicable practice of "death by queuing" spiked under Obama.
Moving toward a nationalized health system might play well with an emotion-driven late-night comedy audience. But sober observers know it would mean undermining America's superior access to cutting-edge diagnosis, innovative treatment, top specialists and surgeons, technology, and drugs.
Compassion without clear thinking is just a waste of Kleenex.
The liberals always use “it’s for the children” while the liberals give full approval of abortions
Thank God someone is calling this out for what it was: a pathetic lie and attempt to manipulate public opinion.
Kudos to Michelle.
A generously compensated liberal entertainer with equally generous health coverage provided by a giant media conglomerate uses his child as a prop for socialized medicine. Keepin’ it classy.
Kimmel’s newborn was never at risk of not being treated; however, my kids lost their pediatricians, lost their primary hospital, lost their nearby clinics, while I’m forced to pay 60% more than before.
On a personal level, the Kimmel family is in my prayers, but regarding Kimmel’s public stance on Obamacare, he can go # himself.
“It’s for the children”
I wonder what the over/under is on how many of Kimmel’s spawn were aborted by Silverman.
Jimmy Kimmel’s situation makes a good argument for an out of pocket limit that should be based on a percentage of either gross income or net worth. It makes no sense that Jimmy K pays the same out of pocket as the assistant producer on the show, regardless of income or wealth. Same logic applies to Warren Buffet and his secretary. Rich people need to pay more for the same service... after all, they can afford it.
Now we have liberal multimillionaires weaponizing tiny tots.....
Or at least those they haven’t killed off in the womb.
Or killed off emerging from the womb.
Yeah! From each according to their ability, to each according to their need!!! That’s one of America’s founding principles! I think George Washington said that!!!
"The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) – now known more simply as the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) – is a program administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provides matching funds to states for health insurance to families with children. The program was designed to cover uninsured children in families with incomes that are modest but too high to qualify for Medicaid."
https://www.medicaid.gov/chip/chip-program-information.html
Covers 8 million children, and costs $13.5 billion.
He’s right about the pre-existing condition possibly limiting his son’s future insurance.
I have a pre-existing illness, a heart defect, and before Obamacare I couldn’t get health insurance.
No one would insure me, not one company, and I tried them all.
It’s true that had my heart ruptured I could’ve gotten help at the ER, but that would’ve been only for the immediate emergency, I couldn’t have gotten a cardiologist or future follow-up unless I had $750,000 in the bank, which I don’t.
Now, under Obamacare, I have health insurance. I know it’s ruinous fir many, many people. It’s radically increased premiums and destroyed choice of doctors and hospitals, but I do recognize, and experienced it personally, that had O-care not passed I’d still be without health insurance today, through no fault of my own other than having been born with a heart defect.
I hope that somehow rational health care can be worked out by the government that allows pre-existing conditions while lowering premiums, maybe competion or intra-state insurance plans, as Anne Coulter has been saying.
Ef
Bttt for Malkin!
Isnt he also a writer? They have the cream of the crop Insurance in Hollywood which is pArt of the issue over threatened strike
I remarked the other day to my wife how the uninsured dead are being piled up like cordwood outside St Luke’s emergency entrance . . .
Oh please. Malkin is the one making this political. Did you watch his monologue? One of the most gut-wrenching stories I’ve heard in a while. Afterward, he made a point to thank all the nurses and doctors who assisted them. He pulled out a list and personally thanked dozens of medical pros.
You could get health insurance if you worked for a company with a group policy. Now the rest of us are paying $15K a year so every crackhead in America can have a Cadillac plan.
If Kimmel is any indication of how this newborn might turn out, he and his wife screwed up bigly when they decided against aborting it. Screw him, his wife and her afflicted plumbing, and their defective progeny.
Gee, wasn't that so funny? How do you like it, Kimmelfarb?
;^)
OK, how about this.
“Jimmy: if you lived in one of your Hollywood’s beloved meccas your baby would be dead. And, maybe not just because they couldn’t fix him, but also because they would not waste the government’s money on a birth defect. Want to know why we are doing so poorly on infant mortality in the US? Its because we try. Most everywhere else they would have assisted the birth with a vacuum hose and sent him home in a biohazard bag.”
So, STFU.
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