Personally,I can't wait for his ratings to start falling through the basement,and his bosses kill his show due to falling revenue from ad rentals.

So Kimmel pulls out his little genetic-defective baby as his Trump card and got coached by Chuck Schumer to deliver the DNC daily talking points (since Pelosi is too drunk or senile to speak to the press any more).

This is as much about ratings rivalry with Colbert as anything else. Hollyweird and the media think that Kimmel is immune to anything if he can play the defective-baby card on Trump. No doubt, they've poll-tested it. We'll see if he remains immune to Trump.

So Kimmel pulls out his little genetic-defective baby as his Trump card ...

Oooh. Listen to you.

Kimmel isn't on Obamacare. ABC's got him covered. Do you think the child of some poor schlub who signed up for the Obamacare Silver Plan in West Podunk, Kentucky is covered for open heart surgery at Children's Hospital Los Angeles?

Give me a break. So who is he to mock a better replacement?

Oooh. Listen to you.

It was a catty crack.     : )

But I have no respect for Kimmel at all. I wish him only the worst.

Kimmel's ratings went down when Colbert went full anti-Trump.

I don't understand the connection,and hasn't that little weasel Colbert always been anti-anything Republican?

This is as much about ratings rivalry with Colbert as anything else. Hollyweird and the media think that Kimmel is immune to anything if he can play the defective-baby card on Trump. No doubt, they've poll-tested it. We'll see if he remains immune to Trump.

You may be right,but I have a hard time working up much sympathy for a multi-millionaire with connections to the best hospitals and probably to doctors who will treat his child for free. I have a LOT of sympathy for the child,but none for the father. He should just STFU about his baby and spend the money to get him treated.

Come to think of it,you probably are right about the "defective baby card". My mind just doesn't think that way. To ME,babies are to be protected,not used as political tools,and I am GUESSING there are going to be a more people that agree with me on this and have nothing but contempt for Kimmel for using his baby this way.

Come to think of it,you probably are right about the "defective baby card". My mind just doesn't think that way. To ME,babies are to be protected,not used as political tools,and I am GUESSING there are going to be a more people that agree with me on this and have nothing but contempt for Kimmel for using his baby this way.

That is exactly how they think. Kimmel gets to hone his acting skills as a white poverty pimp and weepy victim-dad AND gets to take cheap shots at Trump to please his bosses AND can compete for viewers more effectively against Colbert AND gets the approval and support of libmedia.

Where exactly is the downside for him? There isn't one. Until Trump finds a way to pick a fight with him obliquely.

As soon as Roger Stone cooks up the appropriate dirty trick. It'll have to be a good one because Kimmel has good handlers. Kimmel is a mental dud personally but he has good handlers.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/21330/jimmy-kimmel-has-no-moral-authority-health-care-ben-shapiro

Jimmy Kimmel Has No Moral Authority On Health Care Just Because His Son Had Heart Surgery. Here's Why.

Ben Shapiro
The Daily Wire
Sept. 20, 2017

On Tuesday evening, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel spoke from the heart once again about Obamacare. Citing his baby son’s experience with open heart surgery at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), Kimmel tore into Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who appeared on Kimmel’s show months ago and vowed not to flunk the “Jimmy Kimmel test.” What was the Kimmel test? According to Cassidy: “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?”

Cassidy insists that the new bill he’s pushing with Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) doesn’t violate that test – he’s saying that the bill mandates that states certify that they provide “adequate and affordable care” in order to waive certain essential health benefits mandated by Obamacare. But the test itself was fatally flawed from the first: it assumes that the government is the best venue for addressing these concerns. It isn’t. Medicaid coverage, which expanded dramatically under Obamacare, does not guarantee that a baby will get everything the baby needs in the first year of life – supplemental charity at hospitals like Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, where Kimmel’s son received his surgery, does. In fact, many patients at CHLA are illegal immigrants, who aren’t covered by Medicaid at all. The big question isn’t government-sponsored coverage, but bringing down the prices of health care and health insurance through competition.

In fact, President Obama’s signature health plan doesn’t pass the Kimmel Test either, as even Vox.com acknowledges.

That’s Cassidy’s mistake for buying into the Leftist model of health care provision.

But Kimmel didn’t stop there. Instead, he invoked his son’s health situation to suggest socialized medicine as a solution. He explained:

I am politicizing my son’s health problems, because I have to … somehow Japan and England and Canada and Germany, France, they all figured health care out, and don’t say they have terrible health care, because it’s just not true.

To ignore the health care cost and rationing problems in France and England and Canada and Germany and Japan is simply ignorant.

But Kimmel's argument is absurd on every level.

It’s absurd on a logical level: having a child with a heart condition doesn’t make you an expert on health care anymore than it makes you an expert on heart surgery. I should know – as I’ve said before (and only in response to Kimmel’s invocation of his own son), my daughter received open heart surgery at a year-and-a-half old at CHLA, at the hands of the same magnificent doctor Kimmel used. So by this logic, my opinion should be treated with precisely the same kind of moral weight Kimmel’s is. But I don’t think that the fact that my daughter had her heart fixed at CHLA is what grants me credibility to talk about health care. Reading health care law does. Studying health insurance schemes does. Speaking with my wife, who works inside that health care system as a doctor (including at CHLA from time to time) and thus knows the system from the inside, does.

Kimmel’s invocation of his son is also absurd on a moral level: Kimmel’s son didn’t lack health care. Neither would anyone else who needed surgery at CHLA. That’s because CHLA is a charity hospital with an endowment of hundreds of millions of dollars. Emergency heart surgery is not denied to babies based on ability to pay. The cost may just be extraordinary on the other end. Dr. Vaughn Starnes, the doctor who operated on both our children, isn’t in the business of denying dying babies surgery because their parents lack coverage. That would be true whether the parents picked up the check or the hospital did or the state did. Cost allocation is not the same thing as treatment availability.

But emotional appeals do big business in politics. So Kimmel has been granted outsized authority on an issue upon which he admits he has little expertise. That’s foolish of the media, foolish of the American people, and foolish of Kimmel.

To ignore the health care cost and rationing problems in France and England and Canada and Germany and Japan is simply ignorant.

Amen! I know for a fact that health care is rationed in England because I remember reading in one of the British newspapers that people with heart problems were being denied surgery if they were overweight,or had a history of smoking. The excuse given for this by the government was "we have a budget we must stick to,and we don't want to waste money on people with bad habits that contributed to their health problems."

Until Trump finds a way to pick a fight with him obliquely.

Tell Kimmel that if he loves Obamacare so much he should sign up for it. Will Kimmel be happy if we go single payer and no one is allowed to have private insurance?

Pffft! He's eating steak and concluding that America is unfair because not everyone's eating steak. WTF kind of logic is that?

He's no different than these black multi-millionaire pro athletes and Hollywood types who condemn the current system that made their comfortable lives possible rather than encouraging others to use the system to succeed.

Cost allocation is not the same thing as treatment availability. < <

Obama bragged about how many more people were now covered under the expanded M Medicaid. Millions. Tens of millions. Boy, what a great President.

The truth is that a large number of doctors are no longer treating Medicaid patients because they lose money on the paltry government reimbursements. Meaning, in s some areas there are no doctors to see a Medicaid patient. So what good it that coverage?

The truth is that a large number of doctors are no longer treating Medicaid patients because they lose money on the paltry government reimbursements. Meaning, in s some areas there are no doctors to see a Medicaid patient. So what good it that coverage?

None at all.

And Medicare doctors are limiting the number of new Medicare patients they take. You cannot change to a new doctor and see him until he accepts you as a Medicare patient, if you have Medicare. You cannot use other insurance or pay out of pocket. I had to wait three months to change to the doctor I wanted.

As for Obamacare crap, what good is a policy with a $6,000 or $7,000 deductible to a person does not have the $6K?

It was designed to get people hooked on government welfare, to econonomically fail, and to drive the country into single payer.

As for Obamacare crap, what good is a policy with a $6,000 or $7,000 deductible to a person does not have the $6K?

It's really catastrophic insurance with all-inclusive premiums. Only the government could get away with that.

Meaning, in s some areas there are no doctors to see a Medicaid patient. So what good it that coverage?

It's good for insurance companies who get compelled customers who can't receive medical care.

Profit!

It was designed to get people hooked on government welfare, to econonomically fail, and to drive the country into single payer.

Didn't we say all along that 0dingaCare was designed to fail structurally in 2017 to usher in single-payer CommieCare?

I said it many times. So did a lot of others.

Didn't we say all along that 0dingaCare was designed to fail structurally in 2017 to usher in single-payer CommieCare?

I said it. I know Rush said it.

It's good for insurance companies who get compelled customers who can't receive medical care.

Obamacare is great for the government which gets the uninsured "fines" in exchange for nothing.

You'd think it was all a scheme cooked up by a shiftless Negro.

Obamacare is great for the government which gets the uninsured "fines" in exchange for nothing.

Now, now. As a penalty or fine, the individual mandate non-penalty was ruled unconstitutional. It is a tax on that class of people who do not have health insurance.

It was Roberts' small poison pill. As a penalty or fine, it could be raised. As a tax, it cannot be made punitive or coercive or a court might rule it an illegal punishment rather than a tax.

Only the government could get away with that.

Well, they did have the help of insurance lobbyists in writing it.

It is a tax on that class of people who do not have health in insurance.

Phrased that way, that would be unconstitutional. So in reality it's a tax on everyone -- but if you choose to get health insurance you get a tax deduction.

Similarly, if you choose to buy a house your mortgage is tax deductible and you pay lower taxes than a person who does not have a mortgage. We don't "tax that class of people who do not have a home".

Phrased that way, that would be unconstitutional. So in reality it's a tax on everyone -- but if you choose to get health insurance you get a tax deduction.

It's not a tax on everyone. It is an excise tax on a class of people, and the class of people is defined as those who do not have health insurance. That is the SCOTUS wordsmithing. The power to tax is not limited in the same way as the power to penalize under the commerce clause.

That is their story and they are sticking with it. SCOTUS did find that a penalty for not buying a commercial product could not be a constitutional exercise of the commerce clause. The action was to not engage in commerce. Personally, I thought that is where they should have ended the opinion.

Personally, I thought that is where they should have ended the opinion.

I agree. But that part of Obamacare was sold to the public as a penalty for not participating. Obama promised not to raise taxes to cover it. And that's how and why Obamacare passed.

But then SCOTUS did a bait-and-switch and changed it to a tax and approved it.

"It is an excise tax on a class of people, and the class of people is defined as those who do not have health insurance."

I disagree. All you did was change the word "penalty" to the word "tax". It would violate due process to tax some people and not others. But, you can tax everyone then give a tax deduction to those individuals who pose less of a burden on society.

It would violate due process to tax some people and not others.

No, the government's power to tax is not so limited. Due process is not involved. The law was passed by both houses and signed by the president. The Courts exercised judicial authority.

SCOTUS determined that the individual mandate could be viewed as a tax. Whether it should have been viewed as a tax is debatable. When viewed as a tax, it is lawful under the taxing power.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf

OBAMACARE - NFIB v Sebelius slip op - ROBERTS, Opinion of the COURT

At 42-44:

Whether the mandate can be upheld under the Com­merce Clause is a question about the scope of federal authority. Its answer depends on whether Congress can exercise what all acknowledge to be the novel course of directing individuals to purchase insurance. Congress’s use of the Taxing Clause to encourage buying something is, by contrast, not new. Tax incentives already promote, for example, purchasing homes and professional educa­tions. See 26 U. S. C. §§163(h), 25A. Sustaining the mandate as a tax depends only on whether Congress has properly exercised its taxing power to encourage purchas­ing health insurance, not whether it can. Upholding the individual mandate under the Taxing Clause thus does not recognize any new federal power. It determines that Congress has used an existing one.

Second, Congress’s ability to use its taxing power to influence conduct is not without limits. A few of our cases policed these limits aggressively, invalidating punitive exactions obviously designed to regulate behavior other­wise regarded at the time as beyond federal authority. See, e.g., United States v. Butler, 297 U. S. 1 (1936); Drexel Furniture, 259 U. S. 20. More often and more recently we have declined to closely examine the regulatory motive or effect of revenue-raising measures. See Kahriger, 345 U. S., at 27–31 (collecting cases). We have nonetheless maintained that “‘there comes a time in the extension of the penalizing features of the so-called tax when it loses its character as such and becomes a mere penalty with the characteristics of regulation and punishment.’” Kurth Ranch, 511 U. S., at 779 (quoting Drexel Furniture, supra, at 38).

We have already explained that the shared responsibil­ity payment’s practical characteristics pass muster as a tax under our narrowest interpretations of the taxing power. Supra, at 35–36. Because the tax at hand is within even those strict limits, we need not here decide the precise point at which an exaction becomes so punitive that the taxing power does not authorize it. It remains true, however, that the “‘power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits.’” Oklahoma Tax Comm’n v. Texas Co., 336 U. S. 342, 364 (1949) (quoting Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi ex rel. Knox, 277 U. S. 218, 223 (1928) (Holmes, J., dissenting)).

Third, although the breadth of Congress’s power to tax is greater than its power to regulate commerce, the taxing power does not give Congress the same degree of control over individual behavior. Once we recognize that Con­gress may regulate a particular decision under the Com­merce Clause, the Federal Government can bring its full weight to bear. Congress may simply command individ­uals to do as it directs. An individual who disobeys may be subjected to criminal sanctions. Those sanctions can include not only fines and imprisonment, but all the at­tendant consequences of being branded a criminal: depri­vation of otherwise protected civil rights, such as the right to bear arms or vote in elections; loss of employment opportunities; social stigma; and severe disabilities in other controversies, such as custody or immigration disputes.

By contrast, Congress’s authority under the taxing power is limited to requiring an individual to pay money into the Federal Treasury, no more. If a tax is properly paid, the Government has no power to compel or punish individuals subject to it. We do not make light of the se­vere burden that taxation—especially taxation motivated by a regulatory purpose—can impose. But imposition of a tax nonetheless leaves an individual with a lawful choice to do or not do a certain act, so long as he is willing to pay a tax levied on that choice.

The Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain in­dividuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax. Be­cause the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness.

A few of our cases policed these limits aggressively, invalidating punitive exactions obviously designed to regulate behavior other­wise regarded at the time as beyond federal authority.

Currently, the tax is small. So small that healthy people are choosing to pay it rather than purchase insurance.

Meaning, only the sick are signing up, driving up premiums. How long before the federal government increases that tax where it begins to actually regulate behavior -- which we know is the real purpose of that tax?

No, the government's power to tax is not so limited.

So you're saying Congress could tax all redheads and that would be constitutional?

How long before the federal government increases that tax where it begins to actually regulate behavior -- which we know is the real purpose of that tax?

That would be unconstitutional as a tax, and the Supreme Court has already said so. The opinion by CJ Roberts allowed Obamacare to go forward as a matter of law, but also as a matter of law, the individual mandate was financially crippled.

So you're saying Congress could tax all redheads and that would be constitutional?

Not that I can recall.