Posted on 10/11/2007 6:04:41 AM PDT by kristinn
Since then, Frost and his family have been introduced first-hand to something else that most kids his age haven't: the reality of how brutal partisan politics can be in the Internet age. It started over the weekend, when a blogger calling himself Icwhatudo put up a post on the conservative website Freerepublic.com noting what he had found by scavenging around the internet: that Graeme attends a private school, lives in a remodeled house near one that had sold for $485,000 in March and is the child of parents whose wedding was announced in the New York Times. The post also noted that his father purchased a $160,000 commercial space in 1999.
SNIP
And while they are still uninsured, they claim it is most certainly not by choice. Bonnie Frost says the last time she priced health coverage, she learned it would cost them $1,200 a month.
In short, just as the radio spot claimed, the Frosts are precisely the kind of people that the SCHIP program was intended to help.
SNIP
While the family continues to support the vetoed bill that would expand the program to 4 million more children, they are hoping to remove themselves from the middle of the storm. After giving a few interviews, Halsey and Bonnie Frost now say they don't want to say anything more, though network camera crews have planted themselves in front of their house.
SNIP
Politics has never been a gentle game. As far back as 1895, satirist Finley Peter Dunne's fictional saloonkeeper Martin Dooley observed that women, children and prohibitionists would do well to stay out of it, because "politics ain't beanbag." But surely, even Mr. Dooley could never have imagined a day would come when a mere seventh grader could be swift-boated.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Isn’t “scavenging” also called “googling?”
Quite a few places yesterday and the day before. There’s a picture along with the story.
Hey Halsey, ditch your computer and internet service to free up some cash to buy your own health insurance.
Got a cell phone(s), cable TV, one too many cars? Ditch ‘em. There are many ways you can save enough money to afford your own coverage.
You sir, need a Total Money Makeover.
Hey, we were audited. And had a second year tacked on. We had to pay and we did.
Halsey, you need to suck it up and do the ‘write’ thing! ;o)
Sure you can. I do it all the time.
Just get an equity loan on your home.
That way you can put your cash into higher yielding investments and the interest you pay is tax deductible to boot.
“The point is the $1200 number is NOT what it would have costed for insurance before the accident.”
In Maryland, group insurance is community-rated. There is no medical underwriting. Thus, you pay the same whether your group has had a million dollars in claims, or none at all.
As a small businessman, he could have taken out a small group policy, even though he has no workers. A small group policy requires that two separate employees must be covered. He’d have covered himself and his kids on one policy, and his wife on the other. When my business was smaller, I did this. It's an expensive way to go, but it kept my family continuously insured for some time.
However, that would easily have cost the Frosts over a thousand dollars per month, even for relatively cheap policies.
Individual insurance is also available in Maryland, but is medically-underwritten. The medical underwriting can be severe. It’s very difficult to obtain insurance if you have heart disease, diabetes, previous experience of cancer, etc. It also drives up the cost if your PARENTS had or have these conditions.
Although individual health insurance policies in Maryland can be reasonably-priced for healthy people with healthy families, the costs quickly increase for anyone with any health “dings” on the record.
I don’t know anything about the Frosts, but it is possible that individual health insurance may have been expensive even before the accident. It would be helpful to know the family’s medical history, but that is a rather intrusive thing to ask.
The difficulty for the Frosts is that they put themselves out there, apparently without thinking it through. They wanted to present their circumstances as an example of why the law is needed (ironically, as you have so astutely pointed out, their case only argues for the coverage of EXISTING law), but probably never expected folks to intrude so far into their personal lives.
That was a miscalculation on their part.
sitetest
“Considering their excellent financial situation I would not call the Frost’s “middle class.” I read that they bought their house 9 years ago for $50,000 and it is now worth $300,000. That’s a damn nice amount of equity.”
It’s closer to $260K value according to FR researchers. No telling what kind of mortgage they have considering they likely had to refi or get a 2nd to remodel their house to accommodate a handicap kid. Somebody with access to the MLS in MD could probably find out.
Yep. It joins "McCarthyism" as another favored liberal term which is used, ironically, in a way that shows a fundamental ignorance or denial of facts.
As loathed as they are by the Left, in fact the Swift-Boat Veterans and Joseph McCarthy were both right.
This is so sad that an "innocent" kid is used cynically for political gains!
The boy is used likewise the Palestinians children strapped with a "suicide belt," sent out to torpedo the President!!
It would have been another story if the parents had come forward and not hiding behind the boy. They actually played "Russian Roulette" with the him!!!
He IS an innocent child...he’s 12 and brain damaged and THAT makes it even WORSE that the parents sent him out to the public square to rebutt the President of the US!!
If that's true, and it certainly could be, THAT IS THE ISSUE that no one will discuss !!! Why is private insurance so expensive? Could it be because the health insurance industry is a virtual monopoly in which competition curtailed due to government protectionism? Could it be that the Health Insurance industry is subsidized by huge pork programs, which keep prices artificially high?
Could it be that health care services are artifically high though collectivisation via HMO's and the like. Where have the private doctors and clinics who are not part of vast HMO networks gone?
We don't need SCHIP, we need competition in the Health Insurance business and in health services in general.
That is the whole truth that has been covered up!
They could probably have afforded it to a fraction of her quote!!
But it was even then, profitable for them, that you and I pay for their "neglect"!!!
1964. Little girl picking daises when atomic bomb goes off in the background.
Implying it would surely happen if we were foolish enough to elect the "warmonger" Barry Goldwater.
It is a classic example of child exploitation.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.democrats29sep29,0,1093633.story
Graeme said the recording in a studio at the Democratic National Committee headquarters “took quite a few takes.” But Democratic staffers said he finished the job in fewer attempts than some senators.
.
I conclude, he is smarter than Senators these Democrat staffers work for.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.