Posted on 10/08/2007 3:28:15 PM PDT by Eric Blair 2084
The media piled on when President Bush used his veto pen on this children's health insurance bill. They tried to drop the absolute moral authority bomb on it big time and paint him as not caring about children. Now it looks like a little backfire is on the horizon.
On September 29th, 12 year old Graeme Frost of Maryland got to do the Democrats’ radio address, in which he told his story of how he and his sister were seriously injured in a car accident, and if it hadn’t been for SCHIP, they wouldn’t be here today. The Baltimore Sun did a story on the family, in which it stated the family couldn’t get health insurance through their work.
"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."
There were many others in the media that swallowed the story whole with its hook. All of them were missing greatly in one major thing, facts.
Freerepublic's icwhatudo, managed to find plenty of missing facts using google:
"First, Mr. Halsey Frost, Graeme’s father, owns his own woodworking design studio, Frostworks, so his claim that he can’t get health insurance through work is shockingly deceptive. He chooses not to get health care for his family. Second, Graeme and his sister Gemma attend the very exclusive Park School, which has a tuition of $20,000 a year, per child. Third, they live in a 3,000+ square foot home in a neighborhood with smaller homes that are selling for at least $400,000. "
Dan Collins concludes:
"I’m glad little Graham and his family were able to get help, and I hope he reaches full rehabilitation. But perhaps the Democrats ought to take more care in the spokespeople they choose, if they wish to tug at our heartstrings."
Then again, as Mark Steyn says:
"But who needs facts when you've got the human-interest angle sewn up?"
Roundup of blogosphere reactions at Stop The ACLU
The IRS will NEVER go after them....NEVER.
We would get a lot more political mileage out of politely but firmly ASKING for verifiable answers to these questions, than out of claiming to know the answers when we don’t. Volunteering to be caught making false accusations against a family with 2 disabled children is just politically self-destructive.
“Is there a sarcasm tag missing?”
Absolutely not!
“The Democrats have put this family in the crosshairs of the IRS. From self-employment taxes to gift taxes (on the grandparents), it is apparent this family is gaming the system.”
If it can be proved that they’ve committed fraud, then that’s a different story.
But it’s certainly possible that this family has income of $45,000 per year. For one thing, that house that’s worth $360,000 now - the tax records show that Mr. Frost bought it in 1990 for $55,000. The mortgage on a $55,000 house is eminently affordable.
As well, it’s been reported that the kids go to school on scholarship - from the school.
Until real evidence of fraud is presented, one must presume to give the benefit of the doubt.
sitetest
I agree. But the family is refusing to talk. People are trying to ask these questions and they refuse to answer.
Then what we should be publicizing is evidence that they have been asked, and have not answered.
Excellent question. It was an auto accident and would have been covered by insurance. Even the uninsured get covered in auto accidents because of a pool for uninsured motorists.
Your question indicates there is even more to the smell this story created.
The issue of coverage from auto insurance has been discussed at length in this thread. I have a few posts at #94, 111, 120, 127, and 140 showing why auto insurance likely wasn’t much of a factor in this case.
sitetest
Yes I am Godfather to a girl that developed epilepsy that is suspected to have arisen from an MMR vaccine. The mother and father had no health insurance to cover it and I chided them for it, only a little as they are close family via my Godmother.
They were able to get help through various charities, to get their daughter into a special school at reduced tuition and to get support from family, friends and community. They never once complained that health insurance is too restrictive and should be made free to everyone.
As for this case, most states requires auto insurance with minimum liability, and for uninsured drivers there is an insurance pool for uninsured motoriists. So no matter how you look at this story it does not wash.
Here’s an analysis of why this story was run:
The democrats want to tax everyone’s wages for a universal health insurance fund. They want to do this because the auto unions can’t continue to drain their company coffers on rich retirements and health benefits. These are legacy liabilities that must go away if the American auto companies are to survive. They can’t compete because their union demands are skyhigh. The unions can’t attract more members because the companies they control can’t compete for more business and are actually shrinking.
The entire universal healthcare scam is a union ploy to dump its healthcare demands onto the public. They will use every trick to deceive toward that end, including stories designed to pull at our heartstrings.
As we have learned to our detriment, Democrats do nothing politely. In their quest for power, they have proven they will use any means necessary to gain power.
It's one thing to be polite, I'm all for it. OTOH, there is nothing wrong with being a bulldog when the occasion demands it.
Fine, then direct your comments at reforming the auto insurance coverage, not universal healthcare or SCHIP which is a universal healthcare trojan horse.
And don’t bother yabbering about premiums will go up on your auto insurance. Of course they will! Just as SCHIP will force taxes to go up and worse involve a new government administrative body to add its brand of waste and inefficiency.
There is no free lunch and I would be happy if Marylanders took their gripe to their state insurance department not to the federal government for a deceptive ruse at setting up a universal healthcare socialist scam.
Because if indeed this family had poor auto insurance coverage for medical, why did they not comment on this and other things?
I am not buying your argument for one second. This family was used and is playing along. The Freeper who exposed them deserves credit. These people had their own business, had their kids in an exclusive private school and lived in a big house. To think they could not afford health insurance or adequate auto coverage for medical is fantasy. Just as Freepers said on this thread, they gambled, lost and now want everyone else to pay for it.
There’s a couple of beer ping lists you might be interested in:
knews_hound
runs Homebrew
rzeznikj at stout
runs beer lovers
“Fine, then direct your comments at reforming the auto insurance coverage, not universal healthcare or SCHIP which is a universal healthcare trojan horse.”
Please point out where I’ve defended SCHIP or universal health care. In fact, I've pointed out that one of the problems with SCHIP, especially the Democrat expansion, is that it is likely to further erode private health insurance, and bring us closer to the dark day of "single-payer."
I was merely pointing out that:
- in this case, it’s unlikely that the auto insurance kicked in much toward the cost of medical treatment;
- auto insurance probably isn’t the best way to purchase health insurance.
Personally, I have high limits on the liability portion of my auto insurance, but have the legally required minimum for personal injury protection.
Why? Because I have health insurance! LOL!
Why in the WORLD would I want to pay my auto insurer for health care coverage when I already pay large premiums to my health insurer??
“Because if indeed this family had poor auto insurance coverage for medical, why did they not comment on this and other things?”
Why would they? They have very good health insurance. That it’s government paid doesn’t especially please me, but I’m sure it’s just fine by them.
“I am not buying your argument for one second.”
You seem confused. What do you think my argument actually is?
“To think they could not afford health insurance or adequate auto coverage for medical is fantasy.”
I agree.
But the law permits them free health insurance. And they took it.
“Just as Freepers said on this thread, they gambled, lost and now want everyone else to pay for it.”
How did they gamble and lose? Frankly, they didn’t gamble at all, and in the context of having one’s children nearly killed in an accident, they actually won big time.
They didn’t gamble because they didn’t go without insurance for their kids.
You may not like how they got their insurance. You may feel that they didn’t deserve it. I may agree with you.
But there isn’t any evidence that they broke the law. And they DID provide excellent insurance coverage for their children.
Which is why, in context, they won big time.
Health insurance especially is like a lottery that you prefer to lose. You get your ticket every month (and most of us pay for our ticket every month), and you hope you never need it. You hope you lose the lottery, and you hope that in some sense, you flushed the money down the toilet every month.
Well, these folks won, in a big way. Two kids at Kennedy Kreiger (associated with Johns Hopkins) certainly works well into six figures. All paid for by SCHIP. Except for the fact that their kids were almost killed in a car wreck, they “won” big.
And for them, best of all, they didn’t have to pay for that monthly lottery ticket!
No, they didn’t gamble, and they didn’t lose.
The only question is whether someone like this is really someone who should be able to get the government to pay for his kids’ health insurance. I don’t think so, but for now, I don’t blame this family for legally obtaining free health insurance for their kids.
sitetest
People correctly drew attention to the fact that this was an auto insurance case. Whether or not this family chose the lowest amount of coverage or the highest amount is not known, but was never asked.
Life is about choices. There are so many cases of people not having adequate insurance and then blaming it on someone else when their gamble doesn’t pay off.
But you have decided to inject the ‘well maybe auto insurance didn’t cover it’ argument. That’s a red herring because it does not matter. The family had a choice. They chose wrong. But they got the big house and the exclusive schools. So they did get that part of their choice. But should things go wrong in other parts of their life, well...just let someone else pay for it!
I’m sorry, I am not buying your argument and I am not defending them.
That’s quite a fabulous story, have you ever considered short story writing as a career?
“People correctly drew attention to the fact that this was an auto insurance case.”
Nah. Getting your car totalled is an auto insurance case.
Getting your kid’s guts and brains knocked all over the place is principally a medical case.
And that’s why folks have health insurance.
Just like this family.
“Whether or not this family chose the lowest amount of coverage or the highest amount is not known, but was never asked.”
Who cares?
Heck, even if the medical bills were covered by the liability insurance coverage, instead of the personal injurty protection coverage, and even if this family maintained a high liability limit ($100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident are considered high limits), the auto insurance STILL wouldn’t have paid all the medical bills!
And why in the world would the family try to do that?
The kids have HEALTH INSURANCE for HEALTH PROBLEMS!
My own personal injury protection on my own policy is the state minimum: $2,500. Why should I care? I have excellent health insurance! If we’re in an accident - God forbid -, we’ll get all the treatment we need, and our health insurance will pay for it, save the $2,500 coming from the auto insurance company. WHY WOULD I BUY OVERLAPPING COVERAGES??
“There are so many cases of people not having adequate insurance and then blaming it on someone else when their gamble doesn’t pay off.”
But these people didn’t gamble. They had more than adequate coverage! The insurance they obtained through SCHIP paid for the best medical care for their kids available in the United States!
“But you have decided to inject the ‘well maybe auto insurance didn’t cover it’ argument.”
No, I didn’t say that. I said THERE WAS NO WAY IN HELL THE AUTO INSURANCE COVERED THE MEDICAL EXPENSES and WHY WOULD THEY CARE?
“The family had a choice. They chose wrong.”
How? How did they choose wrong?
“But they got the big house and the exclusive schools.”
Yup. AND health insurance for their kids.
Looks to me like they won all the way around.
I may not like how they obtained the health insurance for the kids, but they did get it, legally it would seem, and it worked out well for them.
“I’m sorry, I am not buying your argument and I am not defending them.”
You don’t even know what my argument is.
LOL.
sitetest
It’s probably not a terribly unusual case. Local and regional banks get caught up real estate speculation frenzies along with the rest of the country. My brother was a mortgage broker with a good track record originating jumbos (probably including some for the same bank that financed the property) and clearly knew the high end real estate market in the area quite well. He worked from home, so was in a good position to keep an eye on contractors doing work on the house. The property was in a very upscale area and included a lot of extra riverfront acreage. The bank figured they couldn’t lose, even if they did have to foreclose, and they were confident they wouldn’t have to.
I’m sure there were a lot of similar stories in the same area and other upscale areas. Even many homes that had been purchased with 20% down ended up underwater, and the sort of people who normally buy multi-million dollar homes often have very volatile incomes (think investment bankers — $5 million bonus one year, unemployed the next. And when the whole economy tanks, the very high end homes are the first ones to become unsellable. Every other price category has people moving down into it, but there’s nobody above the very top to move down into the very top homes. The banks couldn’t sell them, so very few people who defaulted on mortgages on homes in that price range were actually forced by the mortgage holder to vacate the property until the real estate market had recovered. Same thing will happen in this round.
Ever find out how the IRS viewed that sort of arrangement?
Kudos to icwhatudo.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
Please let me know what you come up with. I sent icwhatudo’s article out to a bunch of people by email, and if there are corrections to be made (e.g. children are on scholarship, house was purchased for a fraction of current price, etc.), I want to send those out, too.
I don’t have time to do any research on it. Just wanted to try to slow people down a bit, before this backfires badly (and before icwhatudo finds himself facing a lawsuit funded the Dem machine). There are unverified reports that an unnamed aide to Harry Reid said the children were on scholarship and only paying $500 tuition each. Sounds a lot more plausible to me than the claim that they were paying full sticker price (most of these schools have a huge percentage of students on at least partial scholarships). As for the house, that’s too complicated to calculate unless the family releases verfiable financial info. What did they pay for it? What is it worth now? Do they have a second mortgage or other liens on it? Was it to some extent part of their business, i.e. woodworking as part of the renovations, with a plan to resell for profit — so that they might have gotten caught in the tumbling real estate market, with a house they have a lot money tied up in and hadn’t been planning to keep after renovations were complete?
Personally, I don’t have a lot of respect for the parents, since they let their child be used by politicians when he’s too young to have any real opinions of his own on these matters. But I don’t like seeing the credibility of the Pajama Brigade damaged. The Buckhead/Little Green Footballs Memogate coup was excellent precisely because it stood up beautifully to careful, well-funded scrutiny. And that was because the info they put out stuck to the facts and wasn’t embellished with lots of wild speculation stated as fact. They described and documented the remarkable coincidence of how Microsoft Word’s default settings in 2004 produced a document identical to the one CBS was presenting as having been typed in 1972 on a military-issue typewriter, and noted the characters and spacing that couldn’t have been produced by the typewriters being used by the military in the 1970s, and then left CBS to be battered with demands for an explanation from all quarters.
Sometimes less is more. The funniest part of Memogate was how the White House firmly refused to dignify the whole thing with a response of its own — absolutely refused to come out and say the memo was fake. This emboldened the dimwits at CBS, who continued to protest for weeks that it was real, ultimately making colossal fools of themselves, and making the whole country realize that the “guys in their pajamas on the Internet” were a more reliable source of information than CBS. Bush and the rest of the White House crew must have been laughing uproariously off-camera, but impressively managed to keep perfectly straight faces whenever the topic came up in press conferences. In the end, this strategy was a lot more powerful than coming out and saying the memo was fake could ever have been.
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