Posted on 10/23/2007 8:58:16 AM PDT by khnyny
A Maryland family caught in the partisan crossfire over a children's health-care bill in Congress is now stepping back into the divisive debate, advocating this time for state legislation that would expand coverage for adults.
Three weeks ago, after 12-year-old Graeme Frost offered a radio appeal for expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), his family became fodder for conservative bloggers. The Frosts were derided as freeloaders who relied on government insurance for their children while they sent two to private school. Bloggers staked out their Baltimore rowhouse, declaring it too fancy for a family that can't afford to pay for health insurance. Commentator Rush Limbaugh imitated Graeme Frost's voice, damaged in a car accident, and said congressional Democrats were using the boy to "advance a distortion."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I admire your tenacity and perseverance. Good luck and God bless you. Keep up the great work. People like you make a difference.
I’m glad Free Republic posters did the leg work on this story that the MSM wasn’t willing to do. This is an important aspect of any public discussion about government health insurance based on income: There are a lot of people who can manipulate the income they show. And the rest of us who cannot manipulate our incomes will have to pay more than our share because we will subsidize people who may well be better off than we are.
Asset tests are very difficult to incorporate. It costs a lot of money to check on people. Hillary Clinton is running around in a bus she calls her “Middle Class Express” - politicians want to pander to middle class people; they don’t want to make them have to show assets and otherwise be treated like the poor.
But the flip side is that without an asset test, you have people like the Frosts, enjoying a standard of living that anyone else would need a $200,000 income (at least) for and the money to live like that comes from . . . ??? where? The Frost parents are unwilling to sacrifice any aspect of that lifestyle, not the cars, not the house, not the self-employment. But they are not going to have health insurance unless someone else pays for it.
The reporters just accept it that the children are going to a very posh private school on “scholarships.” Does it make sense that a private school is raiding Baltimore public schools of middle class white children by giving them virtually full scholarships? No reporter with integrity would repeat that “scholarships” business without seeing documentation.
Great post.
First, I wasn’t aware that Hillary had a bus she calls “the Middle Class Express” - that’s amusing. Hillary seems to excel at patronizing the “little people”.
IMHO, if a family promotes itself as the dem poster child for government handouts, be prepared for scrutiny. The Baltimore Sun did originally ask for a copy of a tax return, but the Frosts’ refused. The Sun then dropped that part of the ongoing storyline, and as you’ve pointed out, did not provide documentation about some of the other statements made by the Frost family. Everyone makes choices, and to pretend that these choices are somehow limited or nonexistent is the true lie and manipulation.
What can I say, Baltimore is a democratic, corrupt city. Pelosi is from Baltimore. Her brother and father were both Mayor of Baltimore. The D’Allesandro family goes waaaay back.
Some of the pro-national healthcare bloggers get it a little bit, though.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/beta-testing-their-product-by-digby.html
One of the commenters on that thread said that for all the quoting of polls supporting SCHIP (the deceitful phrasing of the story that the issue is about getting rid of the program) “as long as the campaign (here on FR, MichelleMalkin, Rush) got people for a moment to focus on people at the higher end of the SCHIP support spectrum, it might have actually been an overall success.” This is true. I never thought about the SCHIP program before but now it bothers me. The Frosts make chumps of a lot of people who are out there working and being responsible.
One thing I don’t get about the reporting is how come the Frosts aren’t pressed on why they are still uninsured themselves. Having had the experience of high medical costs from an accident, why are they still leaving themselves unprotected? Walmart runs commercials that every one of their associates can get health insurance for something like a dollar a day. Get a job at Walmart. Both of them could get Walmart jobs.
That was really subtle. I had to rub my eyes and read it again.
They’ve got a lot of nerve. I wonder how much WaPo is paying for the story? And is it being reported to their caseworker?
Yep. You know there is a payoff somewhere. Just like Code Pink. Who pays their bail money?
Soros? The fund that Cindy Sheehan doesn’t need anymore, now that she found out the Dems were using her and she’s left Crawford?
"What’s the Frost family up to? Snowing over MSM propaganda tools and lobbying for government-subsidized adult health insurance. Here’s a point-by-point deconstruction of the WaPo’s error-ridden piece from the Freeper who first started asking the questions no one else wanted to ask. Bookmark it."
I saw that...nice job. Keep bringing it to them.
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