On Monday night, Jimmy Kimmel inspired a river of tears that still has yet to stop when he revealed that his precious new baby boy had to have heart surgery shortly after his birth.
JImmy said that doctors discovered the baby had a congenital heart disease, and that he required surgery then and he’ll have to have another one in a few months.
He talked about the ordeal for a few minutes, even crying through some parts — and understandably so — and during his speech he also mentioned some facts about health insurance.
“You know, before 2014, if you were born with a 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 pre-existing condition,” he said.
“If your parents didn’t have medical insurance, you might not even live long enough to get denied because of your pre-existing condition.”
“If your baby is going to die and it doesn’t have to,” Jimmy added, “it shouldn’t matter how much money you make.”
“No parent should ever have to decide if they can afford to save their child’s life. It just shouldn’t happen. Not here.”
And he’s right — it absolutely shouldn’t. That’s just common sense and basic human decency, right?
According to former Congressman Joe Walsh, not so much.
Yesterday, after Jimmy’s story started getting a lot of attention, Joe tweeted “Sorry Jimmy Kimmel: your sad story doesn’t obligate me or anybody else to pay for somebody else’s health care.”
For real, he actually tweeted that. How heartless can you be?
He also tweeted that “Health care is complicated. Health care is bankrupting America. But instead of thinking thru all of that, we’d rather cry with @jimmykimmel.”
Or hey, why can’t we cry with Jimmy Kimmel and try to reach out to all those dozens and dozens of countries who manage to have universal healthcare. Why not both?
Good ol’ Joe wasn’t done though.
“11,000 Americans retire every day. We’re living into our 90’s. Instead of debating how to pay for all that heath care we watch @jimmykimmel,” he wrote.
“I’ll say it: For a people no longer capable of logic & reason, it’s perfect that a late night comedian just decided our health care policy.”
What a bunch of nonsense, right?
But don’t worry: Twitter put Joe in his place.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” one person told him. “And hope to god nothing happens to YOUR kids, you ignorant f-ck.”
“Thank you for having the courage to fight against those conniving evil takers, sick children,” another wrote.
And many, many people pointed out that in 2011, Joe’s ex-wife sued him for unpaid child support, claiming that he owed a total of $ 117,437 in past due payments for three kids.
The great Patton Oswalt tweeted “Joe, you won’t even pay child support for your OWN kids. We already knew you felt this way, you worm. No need to tell us — we’re good.”
Another person wrote “How peculiar that a deadbeat dad would take this particular stance, even as a form of desperate attention seeking.”
But still, Joe wasn’t moved.
Just this morning, he tweeted “It’s not compassion to forcibly take the money I make & give it to someone else. It is compassion for me to voluntarily help someone else.”
OK, Joe. Whatever you say, pal.