- The Washington Times - Friday, May 5, 2017

Great, now Jimmy Kimmel’s launched a movement.

A Republican on Capitol Hill, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, said Friday that any plan to repeal Obamacare must first meet a “Jimmy Kimmel test.”

What’d he mean by that?

His words, the Hill reported: “I ask, does it pass the Jimmy Kimmel test? Will a child born with congenital heart disease be able to get everything she or he would need in the first year of life? I want it to pass the Jimmy Kimmel test.”

That’s nice, senator. Thing is — America already had, even before Obamacare took effect, a means that would’ve passed the Jimmy Kimmel test. It was called the hospital emergency room. Another one? It was called the birthing-room ward. That’s the one where the pregnant woman enters the hospital, delivers her baby, and doctors, nurses and other medical staffers provide the baby whatever he or she needs to stay alive.

The problem the left has with that scenario? The woman might have a bill to pay, post-delivery. And she might have ongoing care for her baby to pay, post-discharge.

That used to be called planning accordingly.

But in this socialized environment called Obamacare, bills are a no-no.

So what Cassidy’s really saying with his soundbite is that he’s in favor of free health care — or, more to point, taxpayer-funded health care. And he’s making this case by taking a deceptive argument made by Kimmel — one that suggested his newborn son might not have received the proper heart care he needed had it not been for Obamacare — and using it for legislative means.

In other words, Cassidy’s acting like a Democrat and he ought to be ashamed.

Cassidy’s a medical doctor, no less. And when he was asked if he was in favor of any plan that included annual insurance caps or limits, he responded: “Simple answer, I want to make sure folks get the care they need.”

Well, here’s a question for Cassidy, and for those who like to toss around similarly blithe statements aimed at showing Genuine Concern For The People: How committed are you to making sure folks get the care they need?

For instance, will you open your own wallet — dig in your own pocket? Will you sell your own possessions to come up with the necessary cash to provide for these folk?

Will you mortgage your house, cash in your insurance policy — spend your kids’ college fund, all in order to make sure the folks get the care they need?

No? Probably not.

And so here’s a Cheryl Chumley Test to use, to counter the Jimmy Kimmel Test: If you won’t spend your own money, you probably shouldn’t spend others. So quit demanding tax dollars for matters that don’t make you reach into your own back pocket and get back to governing in accordance with the U.S. Constitution — the limited version planned and effected by Founding Fathers, not the one that’s since been tainted, tugged and expanded by the progressive left.

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