Jimmy Kimmel, known for his viral comedic videos and laughs in general, turned serious during Monday night’s show, as he relived his nightmare of his newborn baby son’s rare heart condition and surgery.
William "Billy" John Kimmel was born on April 21. He was like any other newborn until a nurse noticed he had a heart murmur and was skin tone was purple, USA Today reported.
He was diagnosed with "tetralogy of fallot and pulmonary atresia." In layman's terms, the baby's pulmonary valve had a blockage and he had a hole in a wall of the heart, NBC News reported.
Billy was taken to surgery on April 24 and a few hours later, he came out of the operating room. He is recovering, but will have to have a second procedure in three months and a third when he reaches his teens. Kimmel and his wife took their baby son home six days after open-heart surgery, the talk show host explained in his monologue.
The emotions turned into an impassioned plea on Obamacare, NBC News reported.
“You know, before 2014, if you were born with congenital heart disease like my son was, there was a good chance you wouldn’t be able to get health insurance because you had a pre-existing condition,” Kimmel said.
“If your baby is going to die and it doesn’t have to,it shouldn’t matter how much money you make. I think that’s something that whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or something else, we all agree on that, right?”
Watch the video below (warning: video has profanity and adult content).
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