After taking a week off to care for his infant son who recently underwent a second heart surgery, Jimmy Kimmel returned to his late-night show on Monday with special guest baby Billy Kimmel to bring attention to the imperiled Children’s Health Insurance Program.
The program, commonly referred to as CHIP, covers roughly 9 million children whose families don’t have access to affordable health care, but earn too much to qualify for Medicaid. Congress let it expire in September—and lawmakers are still fighting over how to renew the popular, bipartisan-supported program.
“This is literally a life-and-death program for American kids,” Kimmel said while holding his son. “It’s always had bipartisan support. But this year, they let the money for it expire while they work on getting tax cuts for their billionaire and millionaire donors.”
“I don’t know what could be more disgusting than putting a tax cut that mostly goes to rich people ahead of the lives of children,” he continued. “Why hasn’t CHIP been funded already? If these were potato chips they were taking away from us, we would be marching in Washington with pitchforks and spears right now.”