Press secretary Sean Spicer responded to Jimmy Kimmel’s recent emotional plea for health care reform during the White House press conference on Wednesday (May 3).
Kimmel, who announced on his late-night show Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday night that his newborn son had suffered from a heart defect and was rushed into emergency surgery, called for a nonpartisan approach to restructuring and re-evaluating health care throughout the country, particularly when it comes to individuals with “pre-existing conditions” such as his son’s. “If your baby is going to die, and it doesn’t have to, it should not matter how much money you make,” said a teary Kimmel.
Spicer insisted that the White House shared “the concern for Kimmel’s child, as well as any child that needs care” while speaking to reporters.
“That’s frankly why the president fought so hard to improve the bill like he did this morning, to make sure there was that extra layer of protection for anybody with a pre-existing condition no matter their stage in life,” Spicer said, referencing a meeting earlier that day between President Donald Trump and three moderate lawmakers at the White House.
Spicer said he also shared Kimmel’s views of nonpartisanship on this particular issue: “We need to have these things that aren’t Republican or Democrat, that they’re American policies… that’s what the president is fighting for right now. To make sure we have a health care system that doesn’t matter where you live or your background.”
Despite that call for unity across the aisle, however, Spicer also stated that former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act is currently “failing” and “not doing what it’s supposed to.”
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.