Jimmy Kimmel delivered yet another opening monologue about the new health care bill proposed by Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Cassidy appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to talk about health care after Kimmel’s son was diagnosed with a congenital heart disease at birth, requiring multiple heart surgeries. Cassidy at the time said that he believes all Americans should be entitled to affordable health care, and went as far as to say that every proposed bill needs to pass the “Jimmy Kimmel Test,” meaning that the bill should protect anyone like Kimmel’s son who has a preexisting condition.
Earlier this week, Kimmel used his platform to call out Cassidy, who recently came out with a new health care bill, but it is one that does not pass his own test. He went into detail about the Graham-Cassidy Bill, saying, “It did pass the Jimmy Kimmel Test, but a different Jimmy Kimmel Test. With this one, your child with a preexisting condition will get the care he needs if and only if his father is Jimmy Kimmel,” he said. Kimmel then described a previous promise Cassidy had made about his ideal health care bill: “He said he wants coverage for all, no discrimination based on preexisting conditions, lower premiums for middle-class families, and no lifetime caps. And guess what, the new bill does none of those things.”
Kimmel gave his entire spiel about Cassidy almost without a single joke, and explained how the politicians want to make things complicated so that regular Americans won’t want to read it and will assume the politicians are taking care of it. “But they’re not taking care of you, they’re taking care of the people who give them money, like insurance companies… Most of the congresspeople voting on it probably won’t even read it, and they want us to do the same thing. They want us to treat it like a iTunes service agreement,” he joked. “And this guy Cassidy lied right to my face.”
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Now, during Wednesday night’s live show, Kimmel addressed the issue for the second time, further putting Cassidy on blast. He mentioned how Cassidy and Graham spent much of their day defending their “indefensible” bill and doing damage control. “I’m sorry he doesn’t understand,” was Cassidy’s response to Kimmel’s speech.
Kimmel’s second speech takes the argument to another level. “Then help me out, which part don’t I understand. Is it the part where you cut $243 billion from federal health care assistance, am I not understanding the part where states would be allowed to let insurance companies price you out of coverage for having preexisting conditions,” he asked. “Maybe I don’t understand the part of your bill in which federal funding disappears completely after 2026, or maybe it was the part where the plans are no longer required to pay for essential health benefits like maternity care or pediatric visits, or the part where the American Medical Association, the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Hospital Association, the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association, Lung Association, Arthritis Foundation, Cystic Fibrosis, ALS, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and the March of Dimes, among many others, all vehemently oppose your bill? Which part of that am I not understanding,” the host continued, “or could it be, Senator Cassidy, that the problem is that I do understand and you got caught with your GOPenis out?”
The crowd cheered as Kimmel took Cassidy to task. “It is by many accounts the worst health care bill yet,” he said. He then talked about the response from Fox & Friends‘ Brian Kilmeade. Kimmel stated that the Fox host “kisses my ass like a little boy meeting Batman” whenever they see each other, and that Kilmeade is “dying” to be a member of the “Hollywood elite.” “The reason I’m talking about this is because my son had an open-heart surgery and has to have two more, and because of that I learned there are kids with no insurance in the same situation,” he said. “I don’t get anything out of this, Brian, you phony little creep. Oh, I’ll pound you when I see you,” Kimmel said.
He went on to say he wouldn’t attack Graham for various reasons, and then took on a bigger fish in Donald Trump. “There’s no way President Trump read this bill that he says is great,” the host said. “He just wants to get rid of it because Obama’s name is on it. The Democrats should just rename it Ivankacare, guaranteed he gets on board. Can you imagine Donald Trump actually sitting down to read a health care bill? It’s like trying to imagine a dog doing your taxes. It just doesn’t compute, you know?”
Watch the full monologue below.
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