Whip Hoyer Releases Video: Senate TrumpCare Bill Fails the Jimmy Kimmel Test

WASHINGTON, DC – House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) released a video today highlighting how the Senate TrumpCare bill fails the “Jimmy Kimmel test.” Kimmel himself defines that test as being: “no family should be denied medical care, emergency or otherwise, because they can’t afford it.”

Watch the video here.

“Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office confirmed that the Senate TrumpCare bill is just as harmful as the House bill and fails the Jimmy Kimmel test,” said Whip Hoyer. “In addition to kicking 22 million Americans off their coverage and increasing health care costs substantially, TrumpCare also allows discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions by allowing insurers to impose annual and lifetime limits and to charge significantly higher premiums for plans covering essential benefits. The bill would also drastically cut Medicaid, which covers nearly 40% of children in the U.S. It would not protect millions of children across the country and would make it harder for working families to access the care they need. It is yet another broken promise made by President Trump and Congressional Republicans, and I urge Senator Cassidy and his Republican colleagues to oppose the bill.”

Following House passage of TrumpCare, Senator Bill Cassidy responded to late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s poignant monologue on pre-existing conditions and said he wouldn’t support the bill if it failed to meet the “Jimmy Kimmel test” to protect Americans with pre-existing conditions. Cassidy said, “I ask does it pass the Jimmy Kimmel test… Would the child born with a congenital heart disease be able to get everything she or he would need in that first year of life ... even if they go over a certain amount?” Jimmy Kimmel subsequently told Senator Cassidy that the Jimmy Kimmel test should be defined as: “No family should be denied medical care, emergency or otherwise, because they can’t afford it." The Senate TrumpCare bill fails to meet both tests.