It could be much less if they are on a scholarship or grant. Say merely $20,000, or even $15,000, or even “free” if they are truly poor and can write a mean grant proposal.
As for poor planning, if they managed to get scholarships, that’s planning. Driving around on ice in an SUV with no seatbelts or catastrophic medical, is indeed poor planning.
There are other financial details, though, like who owns the business in the building he’s renting out, how much money he really makes, and so forth. One of the grandparents is apparently quite well-to-do.
They can afford an SUV, and drive with no seatbelts, and apparently had little or no medical insurance with whatever policy they had (or, just wondering, did the insurance company limit coverage because of the lack of seatbelts for the kids?)
No mater who paid, it cost a bundle to save those kids lives and get them rehabilitation, as well as access to good doctors and nurses and equipment, and I’m glad they were in the USA where that sort of thing is possible. Someone told me that there are more CAT scanners in Southern California than in all of Canada (I can’t vouch for the accuracy).
I feel sorry for the kids, especially now that the parents and the DNC put them up as unassailable spokesmen for government health care.
If a person receives a scholarship does that person have to pay the IRS a tax on the value? The man that caught Barry Bonds record breaking baseball was assessed a tax the next day.
Could be - there are more people in California than in Canada.
It’s a strange situation. SCHIP either is a good program, or not, regardless of this one family. EXPANSION of SCHIP is either necessary or not, regardless of this one family.
Proving this one family could have afforded insurance seems not to matter to proving SCHIP should be cancelled (although it’s a sign that people who should take care of themselves are using our tax dollars so they can buy bigger houses and better things).
But the Democratic Leadership CHOSE this family to be their poster-family to prove how dire the situation is for the country, and how necessary an expansion of SCHIP is.
We can easily attack THAT aspect of the story, first by proving that the family didn’t really NEED SCHIP because they had plenty of capital in their house, they own a business and a pretty decent commercial building, they both have jobs and could certainly get jobs with health care.
FURTHER, we can easily attack the story because this family, and these kids, actually BENEFITED from the SCHIP program as built by and funded by the Republican Majority. The President was calling for increased funding to continue the program. This family only makes $45,000 a year, and would therefore continue to qualify under any incarnation of the program.
So the Republicans should have immediately come out and said that Graeme is a perfect example of how the CURRENT program is working fine, and doesn’t need to be expanded to illegals, 25-year-old, and upper-middle-class families.
Then when the details of the story come out, it just reinforces how rediculous the Democrats are being holding up the program to try to benefit illegals, adults, and rich people.
At the expense of people like Graeme — if they had their accident NOW, they’d be without health insurance because of the Greed of the Democrats.
We need to learn how to frame our messages.