Jimmy Kimmel has an infant son who is still alive because Jimmy Kimmel had access in the American healthcare system that many in America do not. He has opined that having health care is a Good Thing, and something Americans should take more seriously.
This, of course, has caused all the usual balrogs to crawl out of their fissures to demand that Celebrities Stop Saying Things. That this is coming from the party whose top healthcare spokesman is none other than Donald Golden Toilet Trump is exquisite; that it comes from the National Review, whose sole policy expertise over the past half-century could be summed up as White Guys Explaining Racism, is a nice capper. Stand back, America, while the nice man from the bowels of Blowhardistan explains comedy to you.
Such sanctimony degrades comedy. Who really laughs at The Daily Show, Full Frontal, or Last Week Tonight?
Who, indeed. What the piece does not offer is, of course, more than the shallowest possible gloss on whether Jimmy Kimmel is truly wrong in his statements. The closest we get is the supposition that Bill Cassidy's bill could—and this is always the could, every last time—free the magic unicorns of the free market to produce rainbow-hued results with less money and more coverage than ever before managed by any of the states, ever, during their entire history of trying and not trying. Because New Federalism, and magic, and because Jimmy Kimmel is wrong to base our conversation entirely around whether or not Americans with pre-existing conditions will be shit out of luck rather than (edgy band name alert here) the Possibility of Ponies.
If the conservative conversation has turned toward finger-wagging at people who are not experts—a curious turn, given that in think pieces just 'round the corner from this one the complaint is that we ought not be listening to lifelong climate scientists because a nice fellow from an oil-drenched think tank has some pretty words for you—it is likely because the experts are lined up on the Jimmy Kimmel side of things. As in, all of them.
There is only one way to stop Trumpcare: Republican senators must pay their political price by having constituents mad at them. We need you now, more than ever to make calls. Call your senator at (202) 224-3121 and tell them to vote NO. (After you call, please tell us how it went.)
Bill Cassidy's bill is supported by exactly none of the prominent players in the healthcare debate: doctors' groups, nurses groups, hospital groups, insurance groups and patient advocacy groups are all quite certain that the Republican bill will do what Jimmy Kimmel says it will do, not what Bill Cassidy claims it will do. The bill is being shoved out without even a formal analysis of its effects—at all. That does not speak well of Republican confidence as to those outcomes, magic ponies or no magic ponies. The bill has no base of support other than as vehicle for stickin' it to "Obamacare" for the sake of doing so.
For a decade we have been making the case that scientific and policy experts are more credible sources than Republican lawmakers. We were wrong; the statement must be revised. Literally anyone in America is more likely to be a credible source of information than a Republican lawmaker. Jimmy Kimmel, a comedian, can navigate a family health crisis exactly one time and come away with an expertise on the American healthcare system that ex-doctor Bill Cassidy can not. The comedy show hosts can dispatch interns to query the day's newspapers and come away with a finer grasp of the specifics of a Republican bill than the supposed authors of the bill can muster.
Republican senators cannot explain how the bill will produce anything but the predicted catastrophic outcomes. They instead declare that they cannot not pass the bill, lest they be seen as weak. Bill Cassidy, the man called out by name by Jimmy Kimmel, cannot explain how his bill will produce any outcome other than the one Jimmy Kimmel claims—and has instead retreated to the Magic Pony defense in each and every interview.
The question here is not whether Jimmy Kimmel or any other American has the right to weigh in on the American healthcare system, or whether or not the nebulous notion of "comedy" is ill-served by having its prominent practitioners say serious things to us from time to time rather than being our obedient little laugh-monkeys. The question is why our nation's comedians feel obliged to spend their time responding to bald lies by our nation's top lawmakers. It is a flat given that the bill strips protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions that those Americans now enjoy: It can be looked up right in the bill, and verified. It is a flat given that it will strip an enormous amount of money from the healthcare system, and that the various states will be hard-pressed to come up with any comparable fraction on their own. Given the current, quite measurable health and coverage outcomes between states that implemented the "Obamacare" Medicaid expansions and those that fought tooth and nail against it, is a flat given that most conservative-led states will not try.
These are not arguable points. Jimmy Kimmel is not on thin ice, declaring that Bill Cassidy's own bill will not provide the protections Bill Cassidy once swore he'd provide. Jimmy Kimmel is not diving into the weeds of "risk-adjustment programs, the Medicaid expansion, or per capita caps." Jimmy Kimmel is, like any other American with a few minutes of spare time and a willingness to comb through the bill, pointing out that even at the shallowest, most cursory level, the bill is demonstrably worse than the current system. His criticism of lawmaker Bill Cassidy is not based on an arcane reading of actuary tables, but the uncontroversial notion that stripping billions from healthcare budgets and stripping regulations on insurance whose introduction brought more affordable healthcare to millions of Americans will, if undone, quite obviously do harm.
No Republican is disputing this, except to claim that an unnamed and undiscovered magic pony will, at some point in the next two years, rise up to brush all our objections aside. In which state? It is not specified. By what mechanism? None is given. Which will result in Americans with current health problems not dying in greater numbers than they do today how? It is not only unexplained, but those that ask the question are pooh-poohed for focusing on potential deaths instead of the Freedom those Americans will be able to enjoy when dying.
Jimmy Kimmel is not a policy wonk. He doesn't need to be. The bill is overtly a bad thing being sold by dishonest men, and there is not an American alive who should feel circumspect about their lawmakers harming them—or lying to their faces.