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.
Yes, I believe it was a "quit claim deed." (Don't remember where I saw that, can't find it in the record I posted but I did see it somewhere.)
I don't know what that means. Does it give you some clue as to what was going on there?
-PJ
I too thought that might be the case, but didn't see any evidence for it in that particular record.
The elder Frosts could “gift” a lot of money every year to a family of 6. Would that money have to be reported on the SCHIP forms?
According to Rush today (if I understood him correctly), the SCHIP program as administered by Maryland requires almost no financial documentation from applicants!
(I hope I'm wrong on that last point -- someone please correct me if I am!)
Hmmm...no replies. I don’t need my inhaler to notice the penetrating smell of troll.
Not sure if you saw this posting on Free Republic.......if true it’s sure interesting. Have you heard anything about this subject?
During John Kerry's nomination acceptance speech during the 2004 DNC, he trotted out his health insurance "poster child", Mary Ann Knowles. Kerry stated that she had to "keep working day after day right through her chemotherapy, no matter how sick she felt, because she was terrified of losing her family's health insurance". In reality, she had excellent coverage with 26 weeks of paid disability leave, but she chose to work through most of her treatment because her husband was unemployed.
Video of Kerry's Speech
Links to story on FR
Al Gore tried this same tactic in 2000 with Winifred Skinner.
Al Gore said, "It brings tears to your eyes. Here's this adorable, elderly woman out in Iowa who's so sick and so poor, that in order to pay for medicines she needs to stay alive, she has to scavenge in a local dump yard for cast-off tin cans."
"She gets a small pension," he said. "But in order to pay for her prescription drug benefits she has to go out seven days a week, several hours a day, picking up cans."
It turns out, as the statement was rectified, Mrs. Skinner goes out zero days a week, for zero hours a day, and that she was only speaking "in the name of" people she assumes must do this.
All I know is they claim they pay a 1200/mo mortgage. that translates to a $200,000 debt. Maybe they took out a second mortgage, who knows.
It’s interesting to see that it is NOT their primary residence, which makes one ask, where IS their primary residence?
They must have rented it out, and possibly own more rental property somewhere. IF so, why isn’t this income reported as well as their 45k anual income claim?
As people can see, these people are not stupid, they are collage grads, and know something of bookeeping. Now, they may have legally hidden assets and income somewhere, and managed to reduce their visible income to 45k for IRS eyes to see. But that doesn’t give them the right to scam taxpayers for medical expenses they can well afford to pay.
Why didn’t he have medical insurance? Probably because he didn’t need it, so why pay priemiums when you have sufficient cash and assets that can be tapped if needed? Better to put that money somewhere else instead where it can grow.
I can tell you why I don’t have medical insurance. I don’t need any. I can pay for all my needs no matter what happens. It’s all tax deductible. All the funds can be taken out of investment savings which have grown over the years so that they act as my own private insurance plan. By using it for health costs, I avoid paying taxes on funds taken out of it, which I would otherwize have to pay.
Yeah, I posted the reporterette’s comments verbatim. I took her to task for not doing any investigating like asking the question, “ So do you pay for the private school tuition “?
Some reporter eh?
This story is getting some well-deserved legs. Good work, ICU.
Media Fail at Fact Checking on 12 Year Old Voice of SCHIP; Blogs(Free Republic) Pick Up Slack
NewsBusters ^ | October 7, 2007
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1908367/posts?page=1
Posted on 10/08/2007 3:28:15 PM PDT by Eric Blair 2084
ANY comments from Rahm Emanuel ring hollow with me.
The man is a paper suit.
The current source of funding for this program is expected to be tax raises on cigarettes. When they have totally outlawed smoking, then where is the money going to come from?
These are going to be ENTITLEMENTS for whoever thinks they should have a free ride. We are raising waaaaay too many kids today who think they are owed everything, including good grades that they didn’t earn.
Again, I am glad that I am not still in the position of hiring new employees. The crop to chose from today is getting thinner and thinner.
Trust fund babies exactly
A quitclaim deed is normal in a friendly transaction, often intra-family in gift or partial gift situations. What it means is the seller offers no warranties on the property as to title, condition, etc. and merely deeds whatever right he or she had to the new owner. No one who is negotiating at arms-length is going to accept that kind of non-warranty since the owner could, in fact, be transferring absolutely nothing.
A quitclaim deed is normal in a friendly transaction, often intra-family in gift or partial gift situations. What it means is the seller offers no warranties on the property as to title, condition, etc. and merely deeds whatever right he or she had to the new owner. No one who is negotiating at arms-length is going to accept that kind of non-warranty since the owner could, in fact, be transferring absolutely nothing.
Couple things seem suspicious of it being the elder Frost who bought the property in 1990:
(1) The property was bought before the younger Frosts were married.
(2) the middle name “Halsey” isn’t on the 1990 record but it seems to be on every other identification of the younger Halsey, including his current ownership of the property.
I’m an equal opportunity skeptic of both parties but this story is amazing. If I was a partisan Democrat, I’d want to wring Nancy Pelosi’s neck (or whoever brought this family forward). Even the initial reporting on it plants some “I wonders” in your mind - that people with $45,000 income and 4 children aren’t trying harder to have a job with insurance and make more money. But then you’re just left wondering if the elder Frosts aren’t transferring tens of thousand a year to the younger Frosts and in other ways subsidizing the youngers since they’ve been married and in effect, the youngers have a lifestyle equal to people that John Edwards calls “the wealthy.”
What protection do the taxpayers have against people gaming this program?
They look like a bunch of little John Denvers.
-PJ
In 1994, Hillary Clinton used Kathy Bush when citing her case as an example of the high cost of medical care.
SierraNightTide — I'm an Earthy, alternative, eccentric, and nomad rogue kind of women. Although I live in Los Angeles area, I feel more at home traveling. ...Smelly, Breathless and Stupid is no way to roam through life, troll.
I think ... uhm, uhm ... there are more people that are bad than there are good. And, uhm ... if you're good, you'll live forever. And, if you're bad, you'll die when you die ... ; you'll die when you die ... ; you'll die when you die ...
I might have said a Hail Mary for you but I'm not Roman Catholic.
Ignoring the big house, building and private school:
It’s not my fault that they popped out several kids.
It’s not my fault that they crashed their SUV.
It’s not my fault that able-bodied dad doesn’t work harder, smarter or a second job to provide the basic family needs.
A man used to make sure his family was provided for and not have to go sniveling to the goverment to provide what he cannot.
Why should I be required to have less for my family after I’ve WORKED many extra hours and went to college nights for it while some sniveling liberal cannot provide the basics for his?
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