No parent should ever have to decide if they can afford to save their childs life,

[still_one]

Kimmel used his personal story to blast President Donald Trump for trying to cut $6 billion in funding from the National Institutes of Health, and he applauded Congress for doing the opposite and increasing funding by $2 billion.

He said his experience shows why all Americans need access to healthcare, especially those ― like his son ― born with preexisting conditions.

“If your baby is going to die and it doesn’t have to it shouldn’t matter how much money you make,” he said. “I think that’s something that whether you’re a Republican or Democrat or something else, we all agree on that, right?”

Kimmel continued:

“We need to make sure that the people who are supposed to represent us ― the people who are meeting about this right now in Washington ― 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.”
“No parent should ever have to decide if they can afford to save their child’s life,” he said as his voice cracked through the tears. “It just shouldn’t happen. Not here.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jimmy-kimmel-baby-heart-surgery_us_590811f6e4b05c397681f094?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

[mcar]

1. So heartfelt

[MineralMan]

2. I'd like the news media to start reporting on cases where

children with serious medical needs do not get needed care, due to lack of funds. It happens every day, but we rarely hear about it. If we did, it might change people's minds about healthcare issues. If they actually covered such situations, we'd see stories every day in every city in this nation.

It's not just children who die or suffer for lack of care, of course, but stories about children would get people's attention more effectively, I think.

[JoeStuckInOH]

6. While I agree and think that's a great strategy...

All I can think of is the parallel situation of the media and it's reporting on guns and violence. All you ever see on the news is gun violence, drugs and shootings (random and mass). For all their vigilance in reporting on these core public safety issues - guns proliferation is out of control and there are huge meth problems through the Midwest here.

At some point in the not too distant past, the news on the teevee stopped having an intellectual influence or effect on the public at large. The public seems only captivated by social media entertainers. Which is why I think more instances of EXACTLY what Jimmy Kimmel (and other entertainment icons like him) need to happen. John Q Public might not care about the news anymore, but they sure gobble up talk shows and pop culture icons.

It was a quite heartfelt scene on the show though last night.

[MineralMan]

11. The major broadcast news network still capture the vast

majority of TV news viewers. Cable News is way down on the list when it comes to viewers. In many ways, ABC, NBC, and CBS are still about the best at simply presenting news with a minimum of commentary, both national and local on your local broadcast stations. Even Fox does OK with its broadcast news on local Fox affiliate stations.

I no longer bother with cable news channels at all. They're mostly punditry with some sort of bias. I get in-depth information online, but still watch CBS for local and national basic news coverage both in the morning at on the dinner hour broadcasts. Since they do national news in just half an hour, there's not time for punditry and they seem to provide good basic coverage of most stories. I also watch ABC when CBS is pre-empted in my area for Golf or other sports coverage in the dinner hour. I'm satisfied with it, but use the Internet for the rest.

I also read a big city daily newspaper every morning for somewhat extended coverage of important stories, but don't bother with their editorial pages.

[JoeStuckInOH]

18. I no longer watch TV news either.

I barely watch regular programming for matter. Other than sports on TV, I only watch Netflix and amazon prime or read information on the internet.

About 6 months ago, my parents (who are in their 60's) came over my house and my dad wanted to turn on "the news" while I finished cooking dinner He meant Fox, of course, and I knew he meant fox news but turned on MSNBC just to get a reaction out of him. You see, I earned a PhD in instigation growing up as a middle child. Well, he got upset when I told him I have no idea what channel Fox news is on - which was completely honest... I actually did not know.

I even sifted through the TV guide menu for him looking for "FOX" for about 10 minutes and couldn't find it. He got SO UPSET with me that "I have all these hundreds of channels and can't find what channel fox was on my own TV"... that he actually left my house.


Funny thing is that I found out I do get fox news, but the tv guide acronym was "FNN" instead of "FOX"...

[Rhiannon12866]

21. LOL! I hear you!

When that first debate was on FOX News, a friend who knows absolutely nothing about politics - but knows I follow things - gave me a call to find out what channel it was on. I had no idea, either, took me forever going through the channels, trying to find the damn thing!

Welcome to DU, JoeStuckInOH! It's great to have you with us!

[HoneyBadger]

3. That is why we need free single payer for all

[Princess Turandot]

4. Here's the video of it...

His comments on health care access are near the end.

[mainstreetonce]

5. He did it without mentioning Trump or Republicans

Which is good . This is not a partisan issue.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. People shouldn't have to hold fund-raisers to

pay for medical costs. You hear about that happening fairly often.

[tblue37]

15. It often happens here on DU, too. Fortunately, DU members have big hearts.

Andy Stephenson was just the most prominent one of the many DU has moved to help with funding for medical care.

[ATL Ebony]

8. Stay strong Kimmels.

I'm glad he had the strength to share his story because it points to my response to some rethug BS yesterday about preexisting conditions are a result of life choices (dietary or whatever). If they weren't so greedy, narrow-minded and and totally disconnected to reality he would not have made such a statement which shows a complete lack of human compassion -- it seems he completely disregarded instances such as the Kimmels are experiencing. So glad they didn't get enough votes.

[hamsterjill]

9. And no child should ever have to decide if they can afford to save their parent's life.

I cried watching Kimmel and I am so thankful that he used his podium to bring attention to this issue. No, this is NOT football.

It's absurd that in a country like the United States of America, ANYONE should go without needed health care. Absolutely absurd.

[IronLionZion]

10. I wish more Americans believed this

but they don't think about the issue the way we do. They don't think about people who fall through the cracks because they don't have the money.

A lot of folks think that more money should buy better quality of service. And they think of a zero sum game where they are going to lose something if someone else gains. They don't want longer waits for the doctor because more people have insurance to pay for it. And they don't want undesirables sitting next to them on the bus or in the doctor's office waiting room. And they don't want even the perception that something is being rationed. They have a scarcity mentality.

We always talk about insurance and payment with our liberal solution of single payer. We rarely talk about providers and costs. The costs are hidden, arbitrary, and vary widely between providers based on who they have contracted with for various services and people get a bill that is much higher than expected. 1/7 of our economy benefits from keeping costs high. There is not much incentive to lower the costs. Hillary, to her credit, did offer a valiant effort to control costs in her managed care plan back in the 90s but people claimed she was rationing care like a socialist.

And pretty much no one is offering any plan to encourage more people to go into family medicine as a way to train up new doctors (not specialists) who can provide primary care. Urgent care clinics have popped up everywhere to help fill this large and notable gap but it's not nearly as good as having a regular primary care physician who knows your family and can coordinate care amongst various specialists. HMOs like Kaiser Permanente make an effort to do this but people hate HMOs for the perception that they ration care and let people die so they can profit. Not much is being done on our growing doctor shortage, nursing shortage, and home health aide shortage (for elderly).

[Locrian]

14. nice summary

>>Not much is being done on our growing doctor shortage, nursing shortage, and home health aide shortage (for elderly).

And nothing will be done - why have more supply if they can make more money when things are scarce.

[IronLionZion]

16. Health care is such a complex and frustrating issue

even if we somehow manage to get single payer, it's only the tip of the iceberg.

It's hard to control costs without the accusation of rationing.

So our side could provide solutions to increase supply of care providers. They'll always find a way to demonize it but I think the majority of people will support a jobs plan to train up more doctors, nurses, and home health aides if we come up with something.

[iluvtennis]

12. Agree - applies to children as well as other family members

[calimary]

13. Aha. I knew I liked Jimmy Kimmel.

Now, I love him!

This is One Freakin' AWESOME point.

"No parent should ever have to decide if they can afford to save a child's life."

What a great statement! It's both a plea AND a battle cry, all wrapped up in 16 words.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/20/weekinreview/the-world-how-powerful-can-16-words-be.html

CRIMINY! Remember when Contradicta whined and fretted over "it's just 16 words!" as though that somehow minimized or rendered unimportant - the ominous message delivered during dubya's State of the Union address where he made the phony-ass case for war in Iraq. ''The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.'' Later on, ol' Contradicta whined and mewled and moaned and groaned, in interviews and public statements thereafter, and to Wolf Blitzer on CNN - "it's just 16 words (WAAAHHHHH)!"

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/13/cnna.wolf.rice/

On CNN, the CON-leaning talking heads immediately tried to minimize it with their various "yeah, but's" and "he appealed to the 'pop culture', but...".

NO "but." THAT is going to be one powerful statement, made ever more powerful by the very human emotion behind it from a guy who ordinarily gets paid handsomely to smirk and snark. It was hitting him hard, and he got choked up and this wasn't a joke anymore, or something that just happened to other people's new babies. And that's gonna cut through. Stuff like that is gonna cut through.

I've read so much about how the CONjobbers are able to cut through to people's gut instincts by stirring up emotions. And how emotions are what power their successful efforts in Congress and elsewhere. It gets the people riled up. Well, I suspect THIS will, too.

[FairWinds]

17. Once again, this shows that the Dem Party . .

needs to be foursquare for single payer.

Bernie was right.

The Reich is going to accuse us of being socialists no matter
what we do (as they did to Obama), so we might as well do the right thing.

[mainer]

19. The video is a tearjerker. It takes someone like Kimmel to focus the nation's attention.

Wow, I cried just listening to it.

[smirkymonkey]

20. Well done, Jimmy.

I wish you, your family and your new baby a long, healthy life.