Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) on Friday morning said that the Senate’s bill to repeal and replace Obamacare must “pass the Jimmy Kimmel test” and ensure that a sick child gets all the care he or she needs.
During an interview on CNN, host John Berman asked Cassidy if he would support a bill that would allow insurance companies to cap payments to customers.
“As you present that, I ask does it pass the Jimmy Kimmel test?” Cassidy replied. “Would the child born with a congenital heart disease be able to get everything she or he would need in that first year of life? I want it to pass the Jimmy Kimmel test. So the simple answer, I want to make sure folks get the care they need.”
Cassidy was referencing ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel’s Monday night appeal for affordable health care for all Americans. He got emotional as he shared that his newborn son had a heart condition that required surgery, and noted that without protections, his son could struggle to get health insurance down the line.
“You know, 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-existing condition; you were born with a pre-existing condition,” Kimmel said.
During his interview on CNN, Cassidy emphasized that the Senate would work on its own repeal bill separate from the legislation passed by the House GOP and touted the plan he’d already developed with Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).
“We take care of people with pre-existing conditions. We do it by expanding the risk pool so that those who are sicker, if you will, are in a pool of those who are younger and healthier. It works,” he said. “We have a plan on how to address that. I personally will be working to implement that plan.”
“We take care of people with pre-existing conditions. We do it by expanding the risk pool so that those who are sicker, if you will, are in a pool of those who are younger and healthier. It works,” he said. “We have a plan on how to address that. I personally will be working to implement that plan.”
Trump: It does pass Jimmy Kimmel Test. Absolutely. It will just cost you millions $$. Everyone is covered under TrumpCare.
Sounds like he’s looking to enact Obamacare
So, after the first year of life, the child goes back into the pre-existing condition death bin. Nice. How ‘Pro-life’.
Pretty much what I thought… The Senate, less willing than their Representative brethren to shoot themselves in the gut, are going to gut the existing bill and completely re-write it, so it has to go back to the house to get voted on again…
I think no one was more furious than Mitch McConnell that the House passed that bill. Now the flaming turd is on his porch, and for what? A whole bunch of “moderate” Repbulican’s stuck their neck out on a bill that won’t pass, cost them tremendous political capitol to jam through, and will likely cost more than a few their seats. Compound that error with a disastrous photo op of the celebration that is practically a pre-made opposition ad, and follow it up with a coming CBO scoring that will excoriate their actions in the exact same way it did last time except maybe worse.
You would think, after the outcry over the last CBO scoring debacle, and the fact that it turned a lot of votes around, that they’d have waited for the next round of scoring before sticking their necks out… but no… the whips did a hell of a job on this one.