Late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel is becoming a leading voice on healthcare reform. On his Tuesday show, Kimmel took Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana to task for flip-flopping on healthcare, saying the senator “lied to my face.”Cassidy appeared on Kimmel’s show in May to talk about the Republican plan to repeal Obamacare, shortly after Kimmel opened up about his young son’s recent open heart surgery. In the interview, Cassidy coined a litmus test for a healthcare plan that he could support called the “Jimmy Kimmel Test,” which stipulates that “no family should be denied medical care — emergency or otherwise — because their parents can’t afford it.”Turns out that was just an applause line. Now Cassidy is sponsoring a plan that would allow states to decide for themselves whether to allow lifetime and annual caps, which, Kimmel says, means there will be caps in some states. Under Cassidy’s plan, each state would essentially have to create its own healthcare program, and have the freedom to cover whoever they want, which would affect kids like Kimmel’s son.“This guy, Bill Cassidy, just lied to my face,” Kimmel said. “This new bill does pass the Jimmy Kimmel test, but a different Jimmy Kimmel test. With this one, your child with a pre-existing condition will get the care he needs if and only if your father is Jimmy Kimmel.”Prior to Obamacare, insurance companies could deny coverage on the basis of a lifetime cap, keeping kids like Kimmel’s who have expensive operations when they’re young uninsured for the rest of their lives.Cassidy, meanwhile, insists that his bill does pass the test.“I am sorry he does not understand,” Cassidy told CNN host Chris Cuomo Wednesday morning. “Under Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson, more people will have coverage and we protect those with pre-existing conditions.”Kimmel argued 30 million will lose coverage under the plan. “I am politicizing my son’s health problems. Because I have to,” he said. “You can shove your disgusting comments where they won’t be giving you a prostate exam because they took your health benefits away.”Watch Kimmel’s monologue in full below:
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