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Hillary Clinton, Rosie O’Donnell, And More React To Jimmy Kimmel’s Emotional Story About Newborn Son’s Health

By Victoria Miller
Published on: 04:10 PST, May 2, 2017

Hillary Clinton hopes Jimmy Kimmel’s emotional story about his newborn son’s health crisis will remind people what’s at stake when it comes to healthcare. Clinton posted a link to Kimmel’s late night monologue in which he detailed his son Billy’s birth story and emergency heart surgery.

The baby, born April 21 to the ABC funnyman and his wife, Molly McNeary, was diagnosed with congenital heart disease shortly after birth when an eagle-eyed nurse noticed his coloring was off after she listened for a heart murmur. After emergency open heart surgery, the 3-day-old baby was saved.

But Kimmel’s son will need more surgeries in the future, which segued the late-night star to the current state of healthcare in the U.S. and Donald Trump’s proposed $6 billion dollar budget cuts to the National Institute of Health, which actually resulted in lawmakers raising funding by $2 billion.

“You know, before 2014, if you were born with congenital heart disease, like my son was, there’s a good chance you’d never be able to get health insurance, because you had a preexisting condition,” Jimmy said in his monologue.

“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? … No parent should ever have to decide if they can afford to save their child’s life. It just shouldn’t happen. Not here.”

Hillary Clinton posted the clip to Twitter and warned followers to “prepare to tear up.” Clinton also thanked the late night host for reminding the country “what’s at stake with healthcare.”

Hillary’s daughter, Chelsea Clinton, also took to social media to write that she hopes Republican Rep. Mo Brooks, the congressman who introduced Trump’s healthcare bill as the Obamacare Repeal Act, will watch the late-night host’s teary-eyed plea to save the country’s healthcare system.

Hillary and Chelsea Clinton’s tweets about the future of healthcare come just days after Trump revealed Obamacare is “dead.” The president also promised a new healthcare plan is on the way with “much lower premiums & deductibles while at the same time taking care of pre-existing conditions.”

In addition to Hillary Clinton, several other politicians and celebrities posted links to Kimmel’s story, including Billy Eichner, Rosie O’Donnell, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Nancy Pelosi declared, “Every child deserves to live a healthy life…We must stop Trumpcare.”

The topic of affordable healthcare for everyone in America was a big part of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, and she logged multiple appearances on Kimmel’s talk show to discuss the importance of the Affordable Care Act. Hillary also talked about her own health after Trump and his team questioned her stamina on the campaign trail and speculated that she was hiding some serious health issues.

“Back in October, the National Enquirer said I’d be dead in six months,” Hillary said, according to CNBC. “So with every breath I take I feel like it’s a new lease on life. I do feel sometimes like this campaign has entered into an alternative universe.”

Clinton, who opened a jar of pickles on the late-night show to prove she is healthy and strong, reasoned that the speculation about her health was likely part of a wacky Republican campaign strategy.

“I don’t know why they are saying this,” Hillary said. “I think on the one hand it’s part of the wacky strategy. On the other hand, it absolutely makes no sense. You’ve got to be prepared for wacky stuff. I’m planning on drawing off my experiences from elementary school.”

[Featured Image by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]

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