Late-night television show host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel expressed the feelings of many, many Americans Monday regarding proposed changes to the nation’s health care laws — consider the consequences.

Kimmel, in a departure from his job as a comedian, shared his infant son’s medical problems. Kimmel’s son was born with a heart condition, and under a proposed change to health care laws his son’s medical care and surgery may not be covered.

Currently, pre-existing conditions cannot be a reason to be excluded from care. A proposed change currently under consideration in Congress would fundamentally weaken the pre-existing condition protection. Kimmel could likely afford medical care without insurance coverage, but his financial position is rare.

While stopping short of scrapping it outright, the bill effectively would allow a sick person’s insurance to be priced so highly than it would preclude a normal person from being able to afford the coverage, some medical industry experts say. Bill supporters deny this.

Our nation’s health care — and the life and death matters that could be on the line here — is too important to make a decision for political expediency. We need logical, measured facts on which we can all agree.

We urge our area’s House Representative, Gregg Harper, to vote against the measure until more public input can be had. Doing so could protect the sick and the infirm against being priced out of health care coverage.

As Kimmell said Monday, “Let’s stop with the nonsense. This isn’t football; there are no teams. We are the team; it’s the United States. Don’t let their partisan squabbles divide us on something every decent person wants. We need to take care of each other.”