Posted on 10/06/2007 10:42:57 PM PDT by icwhatudo
Graeme Frost, who gave the democrat rebuttal to George Bush’s reasons for vetoing the SCHIP Bill, is a middle school student at the exclusive$20,000 per year Park School in Baltimore, MD.
Graeme was in a severe car accident three years ago, and received care paid for by the government program known as SCHIP-(State Children's Health Insurance Program)
"I was in a coma for a week and couldn't eat or stand up or even talk. My sister was even worse," Graeme wrote. "My parents work really hard and always make sure my sister and I have everything we need, but we can't afford private health insurance."
His sister Gemma, also severely injured in the accident, attended the same school prior to the accident meaning the family was able to come up with nearly $40,000 per year for tuition for these 2 grade schoolers. Confirmation both attended Park found here using edit-"find on this page"-Gemma. It will take you to an article in the schools newspaper about a fundraiser for Gemma class of 16, and Graeme class of 13.
Here are photos of the school's 44,000 square foot Wyman Arts Center: two galleries, an outdoor ampitheater, Meyerhoff Theater, Macks-Fidler Black Box Theater, practice rooms, rehearsal space, and ceramics, 3-D sculpture, woodworking, jewelry, painting, photography, digital graphics studios, recording studio, and keyboard lab.
In a Baltimore Sun article the family claims to be raising their four children on combined income of about $45,000 a year. "Bonnie Frost works for a medical publishing firm; her husband, Halsey, is a woodworker. They are raising their four children on combined income of about $45,000 a year. Neither gets health insurance through work."
What the article does not mention is that Halsey Frost has owned his own company "Frostworks",since this marriage announcement in the NY Times in 1992 so he chooses to not give himself insurance. He also employed his wife as "bookkeeper and operations management" prior to her recent 2007 hire at the "medical publishing firm". As her employer, he apparently denied her health insurance as well.
His company, Frostworks, is located at 3701 E BALTIMORE ST. A building that was purchased for $160,000 in 1999. The buildings owner is listed as DIVERSIFIED INDUSTRIAL DESIGN CENTER, LLC whose mailing address is listed as 104 S Collington Ave which is the Frost's home. The commercial property he owns is also listed as the business address for another company called Reillys Designs which leads to the question of whether rental income is included in the above mentioned salary total
The current market value of their improved 3,040 SF home at 104 S Collington Ave is unknown but 113 S COLLINGTON AVE, also an end unit, sold for $485,000 this past March and it was only 2,060 SF. A photo taken in the family's kitchen shows what appears to be a recent remodeling job with granite counter tops and glass front cabinets
One has to wonder that if time and money can be found to remodel a home, send kids to exclusive private schools, purchase commercial property and run your own business... maybe money can be found for other things...maybe Dad should drop his woodworking hobby and get a real job that offers health insurance rather than making people like me (also with 4 kids in a 600sf smaller house and tuition $16,000 less per kid and no commercial property ownership) pay for it in my taxes.
Ah, banning the freon-based, pressurized MDI’s was environmentalism stupidity run amok, but do tell me, why 5% of asthmatics can’t use the new HFA MDI’s or the dry-powder inhalers. But blame the environmentalists and DuPont big business types for banning those products.
“The Dems had to know this was coming. It’s so stupid I don’t know if I believe it.”
Honestly, I think it’s brazen testament to the fact that the Dems and their biatches the MSM, can put any story on the nightly news and it will be swallowed hook, line and sinker.
And if you DARE to question any of it, you’re just an unfeeling, heartless neocon.
Very doubtful; "code-pink" cindy sheehan is back again!!!
WHY should he???
According to you, then we all should have a J.O.B., makes no sense at all!!!
This caught my eye:
“The bridegroom’s late grandfather Frederick G. Frost Jr. was an architect responsible for several public buildings in New York, including Martin Luther King High School in Manhattan.. “
This says to me “Old NY Money...Big Trust Fund for poor Halsey Frost.” And he can’t pay for his own kids’ health insurance?
>(T)he Feds should not be providing medical services directly; instead, they should provide infrastructure (in the form of vouchers) good for treatment at any participating privately-owned, for-profit medical care establishment.
>This would provide a guarantee of health care for all Americans while preserving the free-market system of choice that ensures quality care.
I'm not a capitalist, but neither am I a socialist.
I call bravo sierra!
How is your infrastructure voucher idea not government-paid health care!? A socialist looks for protection from government. Your desire for government to "provide a guarantee of health care" means take from me at the point of a gun and give to you by the grace of your vote. You're sounding like a duck to me.
The high cost of Heath Insurance was caused by the government mandated and forced controls on health care that already exist, in addition to the exorbitantly excessive tort awards fomented by liberal judges and trial lawyers. When lawsuits are uncontrolled, insurers must increase costs and implement costly measures to protect against the most extreme Liability Risk. When Government forces Health care Personnel, Facilities and Institutions to provide services to various segments of society, the costs to all other groups and individuals must increase to absorb the unbridled excessive demand.
It is the proud duty of every Christian to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the sick — even if the needy don't deserve it.
Is it your duty also to vote to force your fellow citizen to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the sick — even if they don't deserve it?
As with Marxian socialism, ideological free-market capitalism does not track with reality as experienced by human beings in the real world.
You disparage Laissez-Faire Capitalism, but how can you hold your opinion when it has never been tried. Even in the United States, our government has had varying degrees of economic control throughout our history.
Although if you consider individual circumstances, the family doctor of my youth, Dr. Stephen D. Smith, functioned pretty much in a laissez-faire fashion through the Fifties and Sixties. My siblings and I survived just fine, in rural Georgia, without government intervention other then the Polio vaccine.
This looks hugh and series. Showers for all.
I like to get the info from all sides of an argument. I found a rebuttal to this issue at
http://whiskeyfire.typepad.com/whiskey_fire/2007/10/next-time-you-g.html
It lists some “facts” about the Frosts - like income, what they paid for their house, and what-not. Of course, it is full of emotion. I posted the following on that very liberal blog under the name El Conquistador. I hope they have the guts to keep it posted, and I hope some of their readers have the brains to comprehend it.
Put all emotion aside. It’s all about personal accountability. It’s all about individual choices. He chose to be a self-employed woodworker. She chose to work in her current job. If they do not make enough to provide medical coverage for their family, they need to make better choices.
Mr. Frost needs to ditch woodworking and work for someone else. It’s just not paying the bills. If he really is making less than $45k/yr working for himself, he needs to get a real job and keep woodworking as a hobby for extra income. I’m assuming he makes less than $45k/yr because the story says “they” live on that much, and his wife works as well, and probably doesn’t work for free. If he is a good carpenter he could make much more than $45k/yr working for a contracting firm. Is that figure net or gross? He may have to take a job he doesn’t like as long as it means paying the bills. Personal sacrifices.
Don’t live beyond your means. Cut back on the spending. Our government needs to learn this one as well. You can’t spend what you don’t have. After finding a job that pays at least as much as he made working for himself, sell the shop. Take any money left after paying off the shop mortgage and pay off the other bills you may have starting with the smallest. That would probably clear up at least a couple hundred $ per month. Now that those bills are paid, take what was being paid into the shop mortgage and the paid-off bills and put that towards private medical coverage. If you spend all the money you make, you have nothing left for the emergencies in life. Please cut up the credit cards!!! The money is there, you just need to rearrange you financial priorities. Personal accountability.
If they bought their house for $55k and it could sell for $300k (like other houses in the neighborhood reportedly do), maybe they need to sell the house and get a smaller place. Would it be tough having six in a house half the size (approx 1500 sq/ft)? Maybe. I was raised in a 900 sq/ft house with five people on less income than the Frost family. My family did it when I was a kid, and so do many others with more people in even smaller houses or apartments. Currently, I’m raising a family of four in an 80 year-old 1200 sq/ft house on $75k/yr (before taxes). Would I like a bigger, newer house? Of course. Could I afford it? Theoretically, yes. Do I want to extend myself so much that I can’t afford medical coverage? No! Personal choices and accountability.
Too many Americans think they are entitled to the 3000 sq/ft house, new cars, and plasma tv’s in every room. If you can afford that, great! But if you spend beyond your means and can’t pay for life’s emergencies, don’t go crying to the taxpayers to bail you out.
My heart goes out to these people, but there are ways to get themselves out of the mess without resorting to handouts from Uncle Sam. Most people are just unwilling to do the hard work and make the personal sacrifices to do so.
Isn't this a great country?
A postman family living in a dump in Daly City can donate $250,000 to Democratic candidates, but an independent business man (with a wife who works for a medical publisher!) living in a 3,000 SF home in a swank development can't health insurance.
In a smug, creepy way.
Uh, they can’t get health insurance because they can’t buy a private policy, because of “pre-existing conditions.”
Thank you for pointing this out. There is a lot of righteous indignation around here from those who obviously never have had to actually BUY private/individual health insurance.
Also, for those criticizing the family for sending the child to private school - the NYTImes reported this morning that the child had a scholarship.
In Massachusetts, children cannot be denied private health insurance because of a pre-existing condition. I can’t believe that Maryland is much different.
I’d want to see documentation on “scholarships” if I was a reporter and I’d want to know about the other 2 kids and where they go to school and how the Frosts got into this very posh private school in the first place. This family clearly has upper class roots -— why wouldn’t the school find kids who wouldn’t get opportunities any other way, i.e., kids from a poor or working class background.
Do any other family members donate to the school? Remember the Soprano episode where Carmela goes to lunch with the Dean at the Ivy League school Meadow goes to and he proposes a $50,000 donation and Carmela and Tony interpret it as an insurance policy to keep Meadow in good graces at the school?
There are too many gaps in this story. I was talking to my brother about it and his question was who it was that brought this particular case to the Democratic Party so that the boy could be used for the radio address.
Isn’t that chick from Air America named Randi?
Good questions. Did you get banned from whiskeyfire as I did yesterday when I asked some very polite questions about the story?
My hunch is that the Frosts are “artists” and their finances are subsidized by the children’s grandparents. Thats just my hunch but the reporters ought to ask the obvious questions to nail down why these folks are content with such a low income when they could make more. Is the $45k/yr even from work or is it from investments? I’d like to have a reporter look at the tax returns and say whats earned and whats investment income.
There is no reason to think that the children would not have had medical care for injuries resulting from the car accident without SCHIP, is there?
I don't live in MD, but to my knowledge, MA is unique in the country with the way it handles health insurance (Gov. Romney's health care reform law.) From what I understand, pretty much every other state hasn't changed - private/individual policies can be restricted to those who have no significant illnesses or pre-existing conditions.
I agree - reporters should always go for documentation.
Do you know the school? Why do you say it is "posh?"
Since when does having "upper class roots" have anything to do with the issue of health insurance? If you can't find anyone to sell you a policy (or if policies cost $20,000, or $30,000 per year - which were prices quoted in a recent Forbes article on private health insurance costs and how to lower them), then the "upper class roots" won't help, especially if your aging parents do not feel responsible for paying your family's health care bills.
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