Kimmel suggests Graham-Cassidy health care bill fails 'Kimmel Test'

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel tweeted a Washington Post editorial on Monday that argued the Senate's new health care bill fails the "Kimmel Test" -- a reference to the comedian's emotional late-night monologue about how the Affordable Care Act carried protections that helped save his son from a congenital heart defect.

But Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, who co-sponsored the bill with GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, vowed to reporters Tuesday that his bill did meet that standard.

In May, Cassidy told Kimmel he would only support a health care bill that would make sure that a child like Kimmel's would have health coverage.

"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 told Kimmel a few months ago.

The Graham-Cassidy bill currently being pushed in the Senate would repeal the individual and employer mandates as well as shift Obamacare's Medicaid expansion funding and insurance subsidy structure into a block grant program for states.

In the Washington Post editorial, columnist Jennifer Rubin argued that Cassidy is "pushing a health-care bill that doesn't remotely pass" the Kimmel Test.

"In essence, Cassidy-Graham turns health care over to the states almost entirely, with few restrictions on how states reconstitute their own system," Rubin writes.

Rubin writes that the bill could allow some states to make radical changes if they accepted any federal money, including eliminating coverage for kids like Kimmel's or pricing people out of the market.

Kimmel tweeted the story without additional comment.

However, Cassidy vowed to reporters that his legislation "absolutely" passes the "Jimmy Kimmel test" -- adding that insurers will not be allowed to charge those with preexisting condition more.

"We have many provisions in there which allow states to make insurance more affordable for him, if you will, that is what helps fulfill the Jimmy Kimmel test," he said.