The birth of his son Billy made Jimmy Kimmel a father for the fourth time and, much less expectedly, a fervent champion for universal affordable health care. This past spring, Kimmel tearfully discussed how he and his wife, Molly McNearney, discovered their new baby had a congenital heart defect. Since then the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host has taken several weeks off to support his family while their newest member received heart surgeries. He’s also confronted the GOP several times in the ongoing debate about the state of American health care.
On Monday night’s show, Billy Kimmel showed up for the monologue to demonstrate how all that accessible care can pay off (a health baby!) and how access is, for some, currently being endangered by Congress’s refusal to renew CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program designed to cover 9 million low-income children. “If these were potato chips they were taking away from us, we’d be marching on Washington with pitchforks and spears right now,†Kimmel joked. The late-night host then asked viewers to call their senators and representatives to get CHIP funded, and reminded them to sign up for their own plan through the health-care exchanges by Friday. Billy said pretty much the same thing, just with his eyes, some hand motions, and his little baby vest.