posted on October 16, 2007 01:06:44 PM new
SO typical.....
Op-Ed Columnist
Sliming Graeme Frost
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: October 12, 2007
Two weeks ago, the Democratic response to President Bush’s weekly radio address was delivered by a 12-year-old, Graeme Frost. Graeme, who along with his sister received severe brain injuries in a 2004 car crash and continues to need physical therapy, is a beneficiary of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Mr. Bush has vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have expanded that program to cover millions of children who would otherwise have been uninsured.
First, some background. The Frosts and their four children are exactly the kind of people S-chip was intended to help: working Americans who can’t afford private health insurance.
The parents have a combined income of about $45,000, and don’t receive health insurance from employers. When they looked into buying insurance on their own before the accident, they found that it would cost $1,200 a month — a prohibitive sum given their income. After the accident, when their children needed expensive care, they couldn’t get insurance at any price.
Fortunately, they received help from Maryland’s S-chip program. The state has relatively restrictive rules for eligibility: children must come from a family with an income under 200 percent of the poverty line. For families with four children that’s $55,220, so the Frosts clearly qualified.
Graeme Frost, then, is exactly the kind of child the program is intended to help. But that didn’t stop the right from mounting an all-out smear campaign against him and his family.
Soon after the radio address, right-wing bloggers began insisting that the Frosts must be affluent because Graeme and his sister attend private schools (they’re on scholarship), because they have a house in a neighborhood where some houses are now expensive (the Frosts bought their house for $55,000 in 1990 when the neighborhood was rundown and considered dangerous) and because Mr. Frost owns a business (it was dissolved in 1999).
You might be tempted to say that bloggers make unfounded accusations all the time. But we’re not talking about some obscure fringe. The charge was led by Michelle Malkin, who according to Technorati has the most-trafficked right-wing blog on the Internet, and in addition to blogging has a nationally syndicated column, writes for National Review and is a frequent guest on Fox News.
The attack on Graeme’s family was also quickly picked up by Rush Limbaugh, who is so important a player in the right-wing universe that he has had multiple exclusive interviews with Vice President Dick Cheney.
And G.O.P. politicians were eager to join in the smear. The New York Times reported that Republicans in Congress “were gearing up to use Graeme as evidence that Democrats have overexpanded the health program to include families wealthy enough to afford private insurance” but had “backed off” as the case fell apart.
In fact, however, Republicans had already made their first move: an e-mail message from the office of Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, sent to reporters and obtained by the Web site Think Progress, repeated the smears against the Frosts and asked: “Could the Dems really have done that bad of a job vetting this family?”
And the attempt to spin the media worked, to some extent: despite reporting that has thoroughly debunked the smears, a CNN report yesterday suggested that the Democrats had made “a tactical error in holding up Graeme as their poster child,” and closely echoed the language of the e-mail from Mr. McConnell’s office.
All in all, the Graeme Frost case is a perfect illustration of the modern right-wing political machine at work, and in particular its routine reliance on character assassination in place of honest debate. If service members oppose a Republican war, they’re “phony soldiers”; if Michael J. Fox opposes Bush policy on stem cells, he’s faking his Parkinson’s symptoms; if an injured 12-year-old child makes the case for a government health insurance program, he’s a fraud.
Meanwhile, leading conservative politicians, far from trying to distance themselves from these smears, rush to embrace them. And some people in the news media are still willing to be used as patsies.
Politics aside, the Graeme Frost case demonstrates the true depth of the health care crisis: every other advanced country has universal health insurance, but in America, insurance is now out of reach for many hard-working families, even if they have incomes some might call middle-class.
And there’s one more point that should not be forgotten: ultimately, this isn’t about the Frost parents. It’s about Graeme Frost and his sister.
I don’t know about you, but I think American children who need medical care should get it, period. Even if you think adults have made bad choices — a baseless smear in the case of the Frosts, but put that on one side — only a truly vicious political movement would respond by punishing their injured children.
posted on October 16, 2007 04:32:19 PM new
Good post, Mingo. It seems that the right, whether media or politicians,have taken instructions from the Ann Coulter School of Propaganda and Lies. They know that if it gets into print, onto an internet blog or spoken on radio or TV, it becomes very diffiuclt to refute the information and replace it with facts.
posted on October 16, 2007 05:02:25 PM newGraeme, who along with his sister received severe brain injuries in a 2004
I can see why you are defending them, they already have the makings and qualifications of future demos.
=========
October 10, 2007 -- A FEW weeks ago, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lured two young children to the spotlight to help him pass a huge expansion of government health insurance. Gemma and Graeme Frost, 9 and 12 years old, were severely injured in a car accident three years ago. Their parents obtained government health care through the non-means-tested Children's Health Insurance Program in Maryland. President Bush's veto doesn't change that - and there's the rub.
Because liberal lawmakers cannot honestly defend their expansion plans as bona fide aid to the needy, they've surrounded themselves with the Frosts and other kiddie human shields to deflect any tough scrutiny. As they push for an override of the president's veto, scheduled for Oct. 18, the desperate Dems will shamelessly invoke the kiddie card to attack their critics for "attacking the children."
After 12-year-old Graeme Frost delivered the Democratic radio address, which was penned for him by Senate staffers, conservatives across the Internet asked the questions the mainstream media wouldn't ask about the family's financial situation. The couple claims an annual income of about $45,000. [b]Neither the Democrats nor the Baltimore Sun indicates how they verified that assertion before circulating it[/n].
What is verifiable: The Frosts own a home in Baltimore purchased for $55,000 16 years ago - and now worth an estimated $300,000. That's a lot of equity. In addition, the children's father, Halsey Frost, owns commercial real estate and his own small business, but chose not to buy health insurance for himself and his wife, whom he hired as an employee. She now apparently works freelance at a medical-publishing firm, which also reportedly doesn't offer insurance.
Gemma and Graeme both attend costly private schools; the Frosts have two other school-age children. Reid's staff says Gemma and Graeme get tuition breaks. But it's not clear when those scholarships were instituted and/or whether the other two receive tuition aid. Moreover, Frost's family comes from considerable means. The children's maternal grandfather was an engineering executive. Their paternal grandparents hail from affluent Bronxville, N.Y., where the grandfather is a prominent consultant.
In other words: The public trough is not Halsey Frost's last and only resort. The accident was horrible. The children deserve sympathy and compassion. But this family made choices. Choices have consequences. Taxpayers of lesser means should not be forced to subsidize them.
The Frosts claim it would cost them more per month than their mortgage, reportedly $1,200 a month, to buy private insurance. But insurance bloggers quickly found available plans for a family of six with premiums as low as $452/month.
Graeme and Gemma Frost are not the first political symbols to be exploited by socialized health-care pushers.
In 1996, Hillary Clinton trotted out young Jennifer Bush, a 7-year-old with mystery ailments whose mother coached her to lobby for universal health care. Jennifer's mom was later convicted of aggravated child abuse and welfare fraud for misrepresenting $60,000 in assets on Medicaid forms.
In 2000, Al Gore propped up elderly widow Winifred Skinner to lambaste high drug prices. Gore repeated her claim that she had to pick up cans on roadsides to pay for medicine. Dan Rather bemoaned: "She's no child, but she belongs on a poster about high drug costs." One problem: Winifred's own well-to-do son, businessman Earl King, debunked those claims.
In 2004, John Kerry propped up Mary Ann Knowles, a breast-cancer patient whom he claimed "had to keep working day after day right through her chemo- therapy . . . because she was terrified of losing her family's health insurance."
The Manchester Union Leader editorial page reported: "Knowles chose to work through most, but not all, of her chemo- therapy because her husband was out of a job. . . . She and husband John did not want to take the pay cut that would have come with disability leave, so Mary Ann kept working."
The Democrats sorely resent that they can no longer peddle their Big Nanny propaganda unchallenged. Reid is throwing tantrums and attacking the messengers who expose their health-care poster-child abuse. Here's a free prescription for our stunted politicians: Grow up.
Michelle Malkin
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.George S. Patton
[ edited by Bear1949 on Oct 16, 2007 05:43 PM ]
posted on October 16, 2007 05:34:10 PM new
What a wonderful representative of the Republican party you are. You should be ashamed of yourself for that remark and Republicans should be ashamed for lying about this child's situation. Great tactics--attack an injured child. That oughta get a lot of votes. That kid has more intelligence, even with his brain injury, that you have on your best day.
posted on October 16, 2007 06:09:36 PM new
Coach! LOL!
Uh, bearlythere, my article trumps your article by two days...ever try READING an OP ?
Didn't ya just love when bushit vetoed stem cell research and condemned so many to life long illness and death and he surrounded himself with CHILDREN TO ANNOUNCE IT !!!!
posted on October 17, 2007 12:03:38 PM new
Great tactics--attack an injured child. That oughta get a lot of votes. That kid has more intelligence, even with his brain injury, that you have on your best day.
Apparently it is permissible for you dinocrats to USE this kid for YOUR own political agenda and now you cry foul when the facts about him and his parents come to light. Wonder HOW MUCH HIS FAMILY WAS PAID to advance your dinocrat agenda.
Can you read and understand the following:
HYPOCRITE
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.George S. Patton
posted on October 17, 2007 12:47:01 PM new
The democrats did not use this child. The family was there to illustrate how much this SCHIP is needed, especially for catastrophic injury or illness. The truth did come to light, but it is not what you are trying to pass off as truth. None of the attacks made on the family by the right was true. Read the OP again. And making fun of a child's brain injury is not my idea of intelligent posting.
posted on October 17, 2007 02:20:58 PM new
Prof, you're getting as bad as craw. The facts are in the article itself. Or if you will, here's another take on it.
Both kids were already qualified for the STATE SCHIP program. Why make a target of themselves by making comments written by demo staffers, for a program they are already apart of, if nothing more that to attempt to induce the poor poor pitiful me factor?
The fact of the whole problem is the age and income limit expansion proposed by the demos. At an income of $84000 a family of four CAN afford their own insurance and a person of 24 is no longer a child.
-----------
Let's Move The S-CHIP Debate Back To Policy
The New York Times takes a look into the storm of controversy over the Frost family in the S-CHIP debate. David Herszenhorn gives a fairly balanced view of the nine-day wonder that the Frosts became, and settles some of the factual disputes that has plagued the sideshow:
There have been moments when the fight between Congressional Democrats and President Bush over the State Children’s Health Insurance Program seemed to devolve into a shouting match about who loves children more.
So when Democrats enlisted 12-year-old Graeme Frost, who along with a younger sister relied on the program for treatment of severe brain injuries suffered in a car crash, to give the response to Mr. Bush’s weekly radio address on Sept. 29, Republican opponents quickly accused them of exploiting the boy to score political points.
Then, they wasted little time in going after him to score their own.
In recent days, Graeme and his family have been attacked by conservative bloggers and other critics of the Democrats’ plan to expand the insurance program, known as S-chip. They scrutinized the family’s income and assets — even alleged the counters in their kitchen to be granite — and declared that the Frosts did not seem needy enough for government benefits.
But what on the surface appears to be yet another partisan feud, all the nastier because a child is at the center of it, actually cuts to the most substantive debate around S-chip. Democrats say it is crucially needed to help the working poor — Medicaid already helps the impoverished — but many Republicans say it now helps too many people with the means to help themselves.
That last assertion is false. Most Republicans supported the modest expansion of S-CHIP that the White House originally proposed. No Republican officeholders have, to my knowledge, proposed eliminating S-CHIP or scaling it back in any way. The GOP has argued that the expansion of the program to 400% of the poverty line would damage private health coverage and create a subsidy for families that can afford to make the choice for health coverage already.
The Frosts, the family at the center of the storm, came to personify the issue because Democrats had them use themselves as an argument for the expansion of the program. This turns out to be rather dishonest, because the Frosts qualified for S-CHIP without the expansion, as Herszenhorn reports. Their income levels fell below the existing 200% qualifying range for S-CHIP and they have used the program -- as they would have been able to continue to do so with the White House proposal.
That didn't stop the Democrats from demagoguing the debate by using the 12-year-old boy to make their political argument for them, then screaming about how heartless it was for Republicans to question the Frost's qualifications for government assistance. Like it or not, means testing is part of S-CHIP; in fact, it's the entire debate. That puts questions like assets, real income, and personal choices on the table. It's rather strange to consider someone who owns over $200,000 in home equity (not $400,000 as reported before) and commercial real estate as someone in need of government assistance. It's doubly strange when the children of the family attend private schools, even on scholarship. That calls into question whether the family has made choices to be without health coverage, or really have no resources to get it for themselves.
However, the response on the Right sometimes outstripped reason. Rather than just argue the facts, some in the comments section here and elsewhere went too far in speculating about finances and motives of the Frost family. Certainly, their argument was fair game, as well as their claim on federal assistance, which is after all public money. The S-CHIP debate doesn't just focus on the Frosts, though (and we find out that the expansion argument wasn't even relevant to them). We have plenty of reasons to oppose the S-CHIP expansion that have little to do with the Frosts, and we should be focusing on policy, not personal anecdotes.
The Frosts volunteered to serve as the poster family for this debate, but they have been exploited by partisans on both sides of the argument. The Frosts will have S-CHIP regardless of whether the veto gets upheld or not. Let's leave the Frosts alone and get back to the real policy debate -- and ask ourselves why we're taking $30 billion from poor and working-class Americans to subsidize health care for people better off than they are, for "children" in their twenties, and for people whose choices are not our responsibility.
Thanks to my friend and political opponent (that is not a contradiction) Shaun Mullen for provoking me to write on this topic today.
UPDATE: Regarding S-CHIP policy and its supposed expansion for the "children", it might be instructive to see how many people get covered as adults in the program now. At Heading Right, I look at states that spend more than 40% of their S-CHIP grants on adults under the current program.
UPDATE II: Bruce Kesler checks into S-CHIP eligibility and discovers that he qualifies -- and then explains why that's not a good thing. Rick Moran questions the charges of "smearing" that the Left has volleyed for over a week.
UPDATE III: When the Left gets their facts wrong, we don't seem to hear the same amount of squealing, I notice.
posted on October 17, 2007 06:11:51 PM new
Bear's post:
"Republican opponents quickly accused them of exploiting the boy to score political points.
Then, they wasted little time in going after him to score their own.
In recent days, Graeme and his family have been attacked by conservative bloggers and other critics of the Democrats’ plan to expand the insurance program, known as S-chip. They scrutinized the family’s income and assets — even alleged the counters in their kitchen to be granite — and declared that the Frosts did not seem needy enough for government benefits.
But what on the surface appears to be yet another partisan feud, all the nastier because a child is at the center of it, actually cuts to the most substantive debate around S-chip. Democrats say it is crucially needed to help the working poor — Medicaid already helps the impoverished — but many Republicans say it now helps too many people with the means to help themselves.
That last assertion is false. Most Republicans supported the modest expansion of S-CHIP that the White House originally proposed. No Republican officeholders have, to my knowledge, proposed eliminating S-CHIP or scaling it back in any way. The GOP has argued that the expansion of the program to 400% of the poverty line would damage private health coverage and create a subsidy for families that can afford to make the choice for health coverage already.
posted on October 18, 2007 12:00:36 AM new
Bear, Why do you bother. The truth will never get any attention from these people.
They see the Democratic dog and pony show as "THE TRUTH". they're a bit too dense to see through the chicanery.
Just look at the title of this thread. Christ sake, they gorge themselves on everything the democratic party feeds them.
They are blinded by their dreams of a Utopian (socialized) world, where all are brothers and sister, no one goes hungry and all have FREE medical coverage.
Of course there will be no crime, no poor, no sickness, no greed, gluttony, envy, lust, sloth, pride or wrath.
It's a nice thought but until we do have a dream police and can invade the inter most thought of all human beings....it will never happen.
I actually feel pity towards many that post on this board.
You have no life of your own and live vicariously through the stories you post. hoping for someone to agree with your programed slant on a story. Afraid to make a statement against the status quo of the board.
You look beamingly at the the two people on the board you think are educated. Helen, keeper of the big and little red book and all things Left and Prof ????, someone with a second rate education from a third world country.
Time to make your own choices. What do you want to happen to this country? Do you want to give the rest of it away, like some many have done in the past? Do you want to speak in Spanish or Arabic, Bow to Mecca?
posted on October 18, 2007 12:59:14 AM new
Colin, maybe after running with a pack of bikers you tend to think that others have a single group mentality too where they have to idolize certain members and look 'beamingly' at them?
Actually each one that posts here seems to have their own identity with their own opinions and individual lifestyles, making their own choices. I don't see any one here that requires board idols or heroes as you may - except maybe for the few neocons that idolize lindak and hang onto her every belief.
You drop by once in awhile only to try to insult others like you're constantly jealous of their intelligence or input. Feeling inferior or what?
posted on October 18, 2007 06:30:24 AM new
"Or do you want YOUR country back, the way it was?"
What a drama queen! Back the way it was? You mean when we used to throw a rope over a tree branch and hang blacks? You mean when we burned crosses? You mean when women couldn't vote? You mean when McCarthy ruined people's lives on his witch hunts? You mean when children worked 16 hour days for a pittance? No thanks.
There goes another flyby sermonette from the internet annointed reverend; the wingnut "reverend" who still maintains on his internet site, "The As*hole List".
Colin, your effort to plant discord here is just as silly as your "list".
posted on October 18, 2007 07:51:55 AM new
The PollingReport.com has posted the actual questions in the USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted October 12-14, and that shows that when respondents hear the points made by President Bush, but given short-shrift in the news media, the majority agree with the reasons advanced by conservatives and Bush for opposing the bill:
• As you may know, the Democrats want to allow a family of four earning about $62,000 to qualify for the program. President Bush wants most of the increases to go to families earning less than $41,000. Whose side do you favor? [Bush: 52%, Dems: 40%]
• How concerned are you that expanding this program would create an incentive for middle class Americans to drop private health insurance for a public program, which some consider to be a step toward socialized medicine? Are you very concerned, somewhat concerned, not too concerned, or not concerned at all? [Very: 22%, Somewhat: 33%, Not Too: 25%, Not at All: 17%]
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.George S. Patton
posted on October 18, 2007 11:35:05 AM new
profe, I think coach nailed it again as to what neocons want.
From the cave:
"""• How concerned are you that expanding this program would create an incentive for middle class Americans to drop private health insurance for a public program,
which some consider to be a step toward socialized medicine?
Are you very concerned, somewhat concerned, not too concerned, or not concerned at all? [Very: 22%, Somewhat: 33%, Not Too: 25%, Not at All: 17%]"""
Gee, that sounded like a "fair" "unloaded" question !
LOLOLLLLLL!!!!
[ edited by mingotree on Oct 18, 2007 06:09 PM ]
posted on October 18, 2007 08:38:49 PM new
Nobody failed. It's only a matter of time before this coverage for children goes thru. Look at the latest polls.
posted on October 18, 2007 09:21:48 PM new
profe51
Or do you want YOUR country back, the way it was?
How was it exactly? Do tell......
****************************************
"Sorry Prof but your being such a pompous azz,
I find it easy and enjoyable to get your nostrils to flare.
"Our Country back"
Where do I start? Before welfare became a give me and not a hand up. Before all the Illegal immigrants burrowed in to our country and decided we would speak their language, honor their holidays and flag, Their culture (or lack of it)
Before it was all about what you got from the government and was about what you gave or invested in the nation.
__________________________________________
coach81938
"Or do you want YOUR country back, the way it was?"
What a drama queen! Back the way it was? You mean when we used to throw a rope over a tree branch and hang blacks? You mean when we burned crosses? You mean when women couldn't vote? You mean when McCarthy ruined people's lives on his witch hunts? You mean when children worked 16 hour days for a pittance? No thanks.
******************************
About what I'd expect from you and I'm a drama Queen?
Do you remember hanging black men?
Have you ever seen a cross burning or know why the KKK did that?
Do you know anything about the KKK, NAACP, NOW?
You don't know squat about anything.
How old were you when McCarthy was on his "witch hunt"
Have you ever met one of these children that worked 16 hours a day?
Have you ever met Children from a small family run farm.
If you had half a ......Never mind, you would understand.
[b]Nice thing about all your posts is..You've made my point.
"actually feel pity towards many that post on this board.
You have no life of your own and live vicariously through the stories you post. hoping for someone to agree with your programed slant on a story. Afraid to make a statement against the status quo of the board.
You look beamingly at the the two people on the board you think are educated. Helen, keeper of the big and little red book and all things Left and Prof ????, someone with a second rate education from a third world country."
Amen,
Reverend Colin
http://www.reverendcolin.com
[ edited by colin on Oct 18, 2007 09:24 PM ]
posted on October 18, 2007 10:44:36 PM new
"You have no life of your own and live vicariously through the stories you post. hoping for someone to agree with your programed slant on a story. Afraid to make a statement against the status quo of the board.
I have a very full life, thank you very much. I do not post 24/7 like some of your cohorts do, or should I said did. I post what I feel or believe in and don't look for approval--least of all from you. Your point makes no sense. You don't have to experience the things I mentioned to know we are well rid of those practices. It is called history--they teach it in school you kmow, even in second rate schools in third world countries, and there are all kinds of history books to learn from. Really neat. You should try it. When you say I don't know squat about anything, you probably mean I don't agree with you, therefore, I don't know squat. Hyperbole--the neocons best friend.
"Do you remember hanging black men?" I have wracked my brain and can't remember ever having hanged a black man. I also don't remember gassing any Jews, assassinating President Lincoln or participating in any pogroms. Why do you ask?
[ edited by coach81938 on Oct 18, 2007 10:54 PM ]
[ edited by coach81938 on Oct 18, 2007 11:00 PM ]
[ edited by coach81938 on Oct 19, 2007 05:19 AM ]
posted on October 18, 2007 11:18:09 PM new
The only point colin has is his head.
What a load of hogwash from him....he who so perfectly fits the description...
""You have no life of your own and live vicariously through the stories you post. hoping for someone to agree with your programed slant on a story.""
He who had to create his own website. LOL!!!
Great post, Coach!
"""I do not post 24/7 like some of your cohorts do, or should I said did."""
