'I'm not a serious person?': Jimmy Kimmel escalates his war against the Republican healthcare bill

pulse

September 21, 2017 2:36 PM

The late night host Jimmy Kimmel attacked the new Republican healthcare bill, Sens. Bill Cassidy and Lindsey Graham, Chris Christie, and Donald Trump.

Jimmy Kimmel is not backing down in his battle with Republican lawmakers over new legislation that would overhaul the US healthcare system.

For the second night in a row, the late-night host attacked the authors of the bill, known as Graham-Cassidy, and implored viewers to oppose the measure.

Kimmel said during his show on Tuesday that one of the plan's authors — Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana — lied to him when he said that any healthcare plan would have to protect people with preexisting conditions to earn his support.

Cassidy told Kimmel in May after the host's emotional monologue about his newborn son's open-heart surgeries that he wouldn't support any bill that would allow insurers to charge people with preexisting conditions more for coverage, dubbing it the "Jimmy Kimmel test."

But healthcare-policy experts have said the bill would allow states to apply for waivers that could lead to insurers doing just that.

After Kimmel said the bill failed the test, the senator said on CNN that the host "does not understand."

"Oh, I get it, I don't understand because I'm a talk-show host, right?" Kimmel said Wednesday night.

He proceeded to attack the bill's proposed cuts to federal healthcare funding and pointed to multiple medical-industry groups that have come out against the legislation.

"Which part of that am I not understanding?" Kimmel said. "Or could it be, Sen. Cassidy, that the problem is that I do understand and you got caught with your G-O-Penis out? Is that possible?"

Kimmel also said it was the "worst healthcare bill yet" and that Cassidy had gone back on his word.

The late-night host also went after others who had either told him to stay out of it or suggested he didn't understand the debate. Here's a rundown of his targets: