Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Sliming Graeme Frost

["Vern Green" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

I read what Michelle Malkin wrote, here is the link about it on her site:

 

http://michellemalkin.com/2007/10/12/question-for-grown-ups-who-deserves-government-subsidized-health-insurance/

 

I think it is pretty humorous all in all. Here is a family who clearly has no problem paying for three vehicles and they have assets they can call upon. Why should they get free health care for their kids, they have resources available, they should have to pay something.

 

But instead, the democrats cart this family out there and make them the poster children for their "cause". Is this the best they could get? I think you could go to any number of households in Missouri and find a family like my sister's where both parents work hard and together they bring home $45,000 per year. They own a house worth $17,000 and they have two cars, a 1990 Lumina and a 1994 Suburban, both on their last legs.

 

Of course, they would never be used as the democrats poster family, because they are able to pay for their health insurance. Even considering my brother-in-law has spinal biffeda (sp?) and my sister is in very poor health herself. They do not rely on welfare or state handouts even though they are the "poster family" of need.

 

I could even argue that I am worthy of getting the handout as well, but since I make too much money per year I would have been excluded from the national plan. This brings us to the exact point most republican law-makers want to get across. This should not be a national plan, states should be in charge of figuring out who is below their poverty line. At my income it would sure seem to someone in Missouri that I should be able to pay my own health insurance, but at $1200 per month for insurance, $2000 per month for house rent there is very little left to live.

 

Yeah, I would like the security of having my family covered and if I could get it, I certainly would stop paying the $1200 per month I am paying now.

 

On 10/12/07, Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/opinion/12krugman.html

N.Y. Times
October 12, 2007

Op-Ed Columnist

Sliming Graeme Frost

By PAUL KRUGMAN

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.

What followed should serve as a teaching moment.

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.


Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

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F Vernon Green 
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