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 ...
If “Swift-boating” is accepted officially may I suggest the new word “ De-Frosting” and any derivetives of same as meaning “ you have been caught with a wide stanch” or “ pants down”...
OK...let’s see that info....let’s see WHO is paying the tuition. Look, the whole kerfuffle is because the parents CHOSE not to spend money on Health Insurance and to spend their money on OTHER things and have their Neighbors and strangers pay for their health insurance while the kids are attending a VERY expensive school, while the people paying for their insurance probably couldn’t AFFORD to do that. That;s why WHO PAID for the EXPENSIVE SCHOOL TUITION is of VITAL importance!!!
Somebody who doesn't know the difference between "aberrant" and "abhorrent."
("This is an aberrant attempt to distract the American people from what the real issues are.")
When the SCHIP program was first proposed, Ted Kennedy talked about families who were forced to "choose between health insurance and food".
I am waiting for Ted to come out now and decry a nation which forces families to choose between "health insurance and buying a $160,000 commerical space".
The horror!
Liberals send their women and children out to fight their battles.
The Frosts get a home equity loan. Deposit the money in an account whose montly yield is greater than the montly cost of the loan.
Pay your montly insurance premimums with the difference between what your high yield account pays and the cost of the loan.
Pre accident I'll bet the Frosts could have purchased their kids insurance for less than $300 per month.
The Frosts are gaming the system.
The bottom line: Don’t have kids if you can’t afford it!! Wear condoms or just keep your sex-tools in your pants!
But really, why would they, when they easily qualified for Maryland’s version of SCHIP, without even having to pay the miniscule premium of $57 per month for a family?
The funny thing is it LOOKS LIKE THEY DIDN’T even have THAT SCHIP coverage until after the accident. It was FREE INSURANCE FROM THE GOVERNMENT, which would have paid for well-care visits, vaccines, medicine, the works. If they had spent any time looking for Medical Insurance, they would have found that their kids could all get free coverage.
I can’t be sure, but the way the articles are written it sure sounds like they went to SCHIP after the accident.
But if you were a democrat, and looking for health insurance, and FREE insurance from the government popped up, you would never even THINK about PAYING for coverage elsewhere.
In fact, this is probably why there are so few low-cost options for child health coverage. There’s no market for it, because the government already GIVES IT AWAY.
If the cheap liberal bastard won't sign a check for his own kid's heathcare, why should I care?
They could have chosen a high-deductible plan for less than half of that, and paid for ear infection doctor's visits and the linke out of pocket. After his son's horrific accident, the most he would have paid is $5,000, with the rest covered by insurance. That is less than 5 months of premiums under the expensive plan.
The fact of the matter is they could have afforded to do that. Irrespective of scholarships and commerical spaces. They could have afforded the $4400-6800 per year for such a plan. They CHOSE not to.
“We can’t be certain, but it’s a reasonable assumption. If insurance NOW would cost them $1200, AFTER the accident which left two children with large and recurring medical bills, it’s reasonable to assume that BEFORE the accident, that number would have been much smaller.”
Not necessarily. Any significant medical condition could significantly increase the cost of individual health insurance.
I'm don't think that there’s any difference between SCHIP and MCHP.
“I also ran a rate quote with Blue Cross, just including children, and if you went with a $2250 deductable, it was only 187 a month for two children. It’s the adults that probably drove up the cost.”
I’ve looked into some of these individual insurance programs, and so far, all the ones that I’ve ever seen that have low quoted premiums are medically-underwriten, and can cost a multiple of the teaser rate.
My interest isn’t academic. I’ve owned small businesses in Maryland since 1985, and have always offered health insurance. There have been times that I’ve contemplated just going out and buying a bunch of individual policies, because the quoted rates are so low. But there’s always an employee or two with either his own health condition or someone in the family, or a parent, and the rate for those folks is very, very high. Which forces us back to small group policies (it’s difficult to mix and match because of enrollment requirements for small group policies).
However, it’s quite likely that they could have insured just the kids for under $1,200 per month prior to the accident. But not necessarily as cheaply as one might think.
Even your own quote of $187 per month is for two children. These folks have four children.
Without knowing what their health circumstances were before the accident, it’s tough to make a call as to what might have been available to them.
sitetest
Actually, the whole point of Iseewhatudo’s post was, “if people like this already get free health insurance, why do we need to expand the program”? He wasn’t questioning them continuing to get it at all. Most of the other posters took it that way, but his continuing posts indicate that’s not true.
Who knows, maybe we're just odd, not awful?
How DARE you reveal this PERSONAL info about the Frosts!
After all, their son only made a NATIONAL political radio address to oppose the PRESIDENT. Don't they have a right to remain totally ANONYMOUS!!!
/s
So I think it is YOU who owe ME an apology, although frankly I don't care if you apologize or not, just so long as you stop attacking me for something I didn't say.
Here is my original quote about attacks, from post number 66:
We shouldn’t have gone from exposing the truth to attacking the messenger (not us here on FR, but some have done so). Although I don’t think ANYBODY has attacked the kid, some have attacked the family, not on facts but just attacked them.
Please note well: "not us here on FR", and "I don't think ANYBODY has attacked the kid".
Yet when a family willfully injects itself into a partisan political debate about income levels and government welfare, any available PUBLIC records regarding their income and assets are somehow off limits?
“Wrong. It’s worth closer to $500K. There was a smaller home that sold a few doors away last year for $485,000. That’s been well documented on several FR posts. How did you come up with $260,000?”
Not necessarily. First, home prices in that area vary widely, even block to block. Second, although the interior of their house is spacious, it was built in 1936 and has one bathroom. One bathroom houses in this region don’t sell easily, especially when they have more than two bedrooms. Finally, the $260,000 value is the value according to the tax records, the government assessment of their property. Usually, that number understates the value of a home, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.
But having owned homes in Maryland for over 25 years, I’ve owned homes where the government tax assessment was HIGHER than the actual market value of my home. The assessment of my current home is low by about 7% or so.
Assessments are update in Maryland every three years. If their last assessment was made prior to the current real estate slump, it’s not likely that it’s much lower than market value, and it’s not too terribly unlikely that it’s actually a little higher than market value.
sitetest
You are kidding, right? Or are you really saying that everybody who owns a house can get a mortgage where the cost of the interest payments are less than what you can get from another safe investment?
If so, why is ANYBODY lending them the money, rather than just investing it themselves in that other safe investment?
I am guessing the "other investment" has some real risk associated with it, which could well go south, leaving them deeper in debt and with nothing to show for it.
I am aware that with tax considerations some people can make a marginal profit without too much risk this way. Usually though the wise investment counselors will only recommend this strategy to pay down higher-interest debt, NOT to use your house as an asset for what is a margin account investment.
Besides, even if you DID decide to take the risk, and you mortgaged the entire amount of a house worth $500,000, and invested it ALL at a somewhat higher interest rate, AND figured out a way to get THAT interest out without paying more in taxes than you saved from your interest payments, you are going to be nowhere NEAR clearing $1200 a month.
Of course, you could just go get a 100-million-dollar unsecured loan, and invest all THAT in your "higher-paying" investment, wait a year, and close it out a millionare.
Odd that so few people seem to do that. :-)
It's ALL for the childrun!!!
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.