Must Watch: Jimmy Kimmel's Emotional Monologue About His Newborn Son's Heart Condition

Last night, Comedian and Television Host Jimmy Kimmel gave a heartfelt, emotional opening monologue detailing his newborn son Billy's emergency surgery to correct defects in his heart. A few hours after his birth, a nurse noticed a murmur in Billy's heart. Kimmel noted that the hospital team started doing some tests to see whether it might just be fluid in the lungs. Doctors then pivoted to his heart, and performed an echocardiogram that found Billy was born with a heart defect called tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia. Kimmel recounted the events leading up to and after the surgery. 

"He opened [Billy's] chest and fixed one of the two defects in his heart. He went in there with a scalpel and did some kind of magic that I couldn't even begin to explain. He opened the valve, and the operation was a success. It was the longest three hours of my life." 
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Kimmel also made an applauded Congress for passing a $2 billion increase to the National Institutes of Health and pleaded for maintaining coverage guarantees for patients with preexisting conditions. "You know, before 2014 if you were born with congenital heart disease like my son was, there was a good chance you'd never be able to get health insurance because you had a pre-existing condition," said Kimmel. "You were born with a pre-existing condition and if your parents didn't have medical insurance you might not live long enough to even get denied because of a pre-existing condition. If your baby is going to die and it doesn't have to, it shouldn't matter how much money you make."