Rivers

In the opening monologue of his late-night show Monday, Jimmy Kimmel told a heart-wrenching tale about how his newborn son had to be rushed into surgery to repair a heart defect.

Kimmel, as any parent who has gone through such an ordeal would, choked up several times while telling his story, which had a happy ending. It was a wonderful example of the miracle of modern medicine in the U.S.

Then Kimmel decided to launch into a political speech about health care reform.

"Before 2014, if you were born with congenital heart disease like my son was, there was a good chance you would never be able to get health insurance because you were born with a pre-existing condition," he said. "No parent should have to ever decide if they can afford to save their child's life; it just shouldn't happen, not here."

The clip immediately went viral, and Kimmel and his baby suddenly became the poster family for ObamaCare.

Barack Obama tweeted: "Well said, Jimmy. That's exactly why we fought so hard for the ACA, and why we need to protect it for kids like Billy. And congratulations!"

President Trump's Budget Director Mick Mulvaney was forced to respond to Kimmel, saying that "Everyone, I think, agrees with Jimmy Kimmel that we have enough money in this country to provide care for those type of folks."

What Kimmel left out of the story is the fact that most people on ObamaCare — in California and the rest of the country — are in highly restrictive HMO-type plans that wouldn't let them go the hospitals or doctors he used.

Kimmel's wife gave birth at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a top-rated hospital in California with, as he noted, very attentive nurses and an outstanding pediatric emergency team.

But only two ObamaCare plans include Cedars-Sinai in their provider networks — Blue Shield of California and Anthem Blue Cross. As the hospital website explains, only those enrolled in one of these two ObamaCare plans get "full coverage for care from Cedars-Sinai."

Data from Covered California — the state-run ObamaCare exchange — show that of the 1.3 million enrollees statewide, only about half signed up with one of these two plans. The rest would likely find Cedars-Sinai — where a maternity room can cost $4,000 a day — well out of their price range.

Nor does every plan include Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, where Kimmel's baby was rushed to for open-heart surgery. Two, Molina and LA Care, didn't list it on their websites.

What's more, a search of health plans offered through Covered California plans found only three that listed Dr. Vaughn Starnes — the cardiac surgeon whom Kimmel described as "world renowned" — on their provider networks. And one didn't include him on the list of providers for their HMO plan. (These provider lists do, admittedly, have a tendency to be inaccurate.)

This is the problem with ObamaCare that its backers — and everyone eagerly sharing Kimmel's story — keep ignoring.

In order to keep costs down in the midst of ObamaCare's overwhelming number of regulations and benefit mandates, insurers drastically tightened up their provider networks. By January of last year, half of ObamaCare plans were HMO plans or "exclusive provider networks." This year, 75% of ObamaCare plans in 18 states have narrow networks.

As the New York Times explains, one way plans can save money is to "make it harder for patients to get care — so that they get less of it. Narrow network plans may do this if they don't cover enough nearby providers, with the ones they do cover too busy to take new patients in a timely fashion."

"Clearly this would be especially problematic if appointments with one's preferred primary-care doctor are hard to obtain," the story noted.

Which is precisely what's been going on in ObamaCare. A study published in Health Affairs last year found that just 30% of the "secret shoppers" it enlisted for the study were able to get an appointment with their first pick of doctor through an ObamaCare plan in California.

Despite these narrow networks, insurers still have had to impose substantial deductibles and jack up premiums by double digits, and are still losing money on ObamaCare. Having an ObamaCare card, in other words, is no guarantee that health care will be affordable or high quality.

Would Billy Kimmel have fared as well had his parents been stuck in one of these ObamaCare HMO plans? Maybe, maybe not.

The point is that, even if your goal is to guarantee coverage to everyone with pre-existing conditions, which was Kimmel's plea, ObamaCare's approach is clearly not working. It is destabilizing individual insurance markets across the country and providing mediocre insurance benefits to the very people who need it most, and insurance companies continue to bail on the program leaving consumers with little or no choice of plans. It is unsustainable in its current form. There aren't even many Democrats who would disagree with that.

Republicans think they have a better way to achieve these protections without all of ObamaCare's adverse side effects; their plan should be judged on those merits, not on emotional appeals from rich celebrities.

By dragging ObamaCare into his heartfelt story, Kimmel didn't enlighten the ongoing health care debate, but only confused it all the more.

http://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/what-jimmy-kimmel-left-out-of-his-newborns-heart-surgery-story/

Bevos

The Left is VERY GOOD at that!!! LEAVING OUT ALL of the REAL ESSENTIALS in ANY subject they are trying to CRAM THROUGH!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH for bringing this to our attention!!!

Not to even mention the FACT that a child born to insured Parents is AUTOMATICALLY insured. My Sister-in-Law had a child that was born with Cerebral Palsy, and he was insured. And THAT was back in the 60s

bggamers Loc: georgia

These celebs need to back off. Regular people cann't afford what they can and they have no idea what regular people have to deal with and living pay check to pay check doesn't include fancy hospitals for any of us down here in reality

private

"Not to even mention the FACT that a child born to insured Parents is AUTOMATICALLY insured." But like most libs, never ignore a chance to bash Trump and praise almighty obama. Just another entertainer with child-like followers believing in his wisdom.

Bevos

Well don't you know Dems FOLLOW whatever the celebrities have to say about everything??? They are their Gods and Goddesses!!! Obama made them that!!! It was his big JOKE on the US!!

bggamers Loc: georgia

Bevos