Dems' Poster Child Faces a Firestorm

[Tinksrival]

Source: ABC

snip>>>
According to Senate Democratic aides, some bloggers have made repeated phone calls to the home of 12-year-old Graeme Frost, demanding information about his family's private life. On Monday, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accused GOP leadership aides of "pushing falsehood" in an effort to distract from the political battle over S-CHIP.

Snip>>>>
A blogger on FreeRepublic.com discovered that Frost and his sister, Gemma, attend a private school where tuition costs $20,000 a year. Their father, Halsey, is a self-employed woodworker, meaning that if his family doesn’t have health insurance, it’s because Halsey Frost -- as his own boss -- chooses not to purchase it for himself.

"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," a blogger with the handle "icwhatudo" wrote on FreeRepublic.

That posting was widely circulated in the blogosphere, making great fodder for conservatives who argue that President Bush was right to veto the Democrats’ bill expanding S-CHIP.

"People make choices and it's clear the Frosts have made choice to invest in property and a business, but not in private health insurance," Mark Tapscott, editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner, wrote on his blog.

But Manley say conservative bloggers didn't dig deep enough. It turns out that the Frost children attend Baltimore’s Park School on near-full scholarships; they pay roughly $500 per child per year in tuition, he said.

Like many small-business owners, Halsey Frost can't even afford to provide health insurance to himself, Manley said.

"Last year, the Frost's made $45,000 combined," Manley said. "Over the past few years they have made no more than $50,000 combined depending on Halsey's ability to find work."

Read more: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/10/dems-poster-chi.html

---

I smell desperation. Swiftboating this family is pathetic. The children were injured in a car accident for cripes sake.

[bluestateguy]

1. Here we go. I could have spotted this a mile away.

Gee, they could have had health insurance, if they just sold their house and ate canned dog food everyday.

[Dr.Phool]

12. Canned? On that salary, maybe dry.

I have 2 large dogs, and I know what they cost.

[Old and In the Way]

2. All because the family had a good story to tell about a federal healthcare program that works.

These losers are scared shitless that the RW welfare system of paid talking heads promoting Republican programs designed to benefit Republican millionaires is being exposed. Their gravy train is coming to an abrupt end. They may have to find a real job and actually work for a living starting in 2008.

[Robbien]

3. Freepers/Dobson's Demons do this kind of harrassment

routinely. Harassing/bullying is an integral part of them, as natural to them as breathing.

[Bozita]

4. It'd be nice to see this on ABC's evening newscast.

But I don't think it's gonna happen.

[The Wielding Truth]

46. RW should be called in public on this shameful behavior!

You are so right. This is a assault on a minor and the people in voled are thugs and should be called out.

[pscot]

5. The tragic irony

is that most freepers are probably living paycheck to paycheck. Many of them stand to benefit from schif, but are willing to cut off their nose to spite their own face.

[atreides1]

25. "... are willing to cut off their nose to spite their own face."

Personally I like them to cut about six to seven inches below their noses, one plus is that there wouldn't be a many Repuke voters in November.

[boot@9]

33. you got...

that right. It is unbelieveable how many people will vote against their own self economic interest.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[msongs]

7. more republican CHILD MOLESTORS nt

[sasquatch]

8. I smell a worst person honor on tuesday

This is still disgusting though attacking a family man, pathetic.

[truthisfreedom]

9. The GOP's answer to bush's bad choice? ATTACK THE CHILDREN AND LIE ABOUT THEIR PARENTS.

Totally typical. They make me want to puke.

[DRoseDARs]

10. Think Progress has demolished these attacks against the Frost family...

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/08/attacking-graeme-frost/

[antiimperialist]

11. The wingnuts wonder how this family pays $40,000 in tuition

They don't, idiots.
The family pays nothing for the girl, who has a brain injury, and $500 for the boy thanks to a scholarship. It's all on Thinkprogress and other outlets.

[Justitia]

20. And they neglect to mention the girl goes to a special school BECAUSE OF her disabilities!

Which were caused by the horrific car crash and subsequent COMA.

Just when you thought you'd already seen the lowest form of humanity, new scum bubbles up.

:puke:

[KingFlorez]

13. Why the heck to they think they can just demand everything?

They really have a lot of nerve calling up a private residence. And as usual, they have made a whole lot of assumptions while ignoring the truth out.

[Justitia]

21. Worse than that even, they've admitted to physically stalking their residence

and ambush-interrogating the husband's business associate - IN PERSON.

:puke:

[jberryhill]

14. Pinewood Derby Veterans For Truth...

Has come up with more discoveries late today.

Several of his Cub Scout merit badges were obtained on false pretenses.

At snack time in kindergarten, he once took the last cookie and then tried to blame someone else.

He said a "bad word" in second grade when the teacher was facing the blackboard, didn't confess, and the whole class was held late to recess.

He once accused his gym class dodge ball team of engaging in acts comparable to Genghis Khan.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

27. LOL!

nt

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Justitia]

22. If you're older than 12, without Traumatic Brain Injuries, & haven't been in a COMA, they aren't

interested in stalking you and your family.

Sick kids are way easier prey!

[skyounkin]

45. I find

your facts and truth disgusting and accurate.....

unfortunately.

[RamboLiberal]

16. Here's Limpballs attack

RUSH: I had some rudimentary information on this two weeks ago, and it wasn't enough for me to trust going with. But since then, it has been verified, and most of it's been verified by a "Freeper" at Free Republic. Everybody is writing about this now, since the Freeper posted it over the weekend. This 12-year-old kid that the Democrats used in the Saturday radio address to whine and moan and cry to President Bush about the SCHIP children's health program, it turns out that the family of this kid sends its kids to "one of Baltimore's expensive private schools." This family owns a house in a neighborhood of homes valued in the $400,000 to $500,000 range. This family bought commercial property in 1999 for $160,000.

This is Graeme Frost, the 12-year-old, and Frost's father is self-employed. He owns the building in which he works. His father makes about $45,000 a year while his mother is employed at an unspecified salary by a medical publishing house that doesn't provide health insurance coverage. Bottom line. This is from Mark Tapscott, who as an editorial page editor at the Washington Examiner, has been tracking all this on the blogs. "Two points. First, people make choices and it's clear the Frosts have made a choice to invest in property and a business, but not in private health insurance. The Maryland-administered version of the federal SCHIP program, by the way, does not impose an asset test on applicants." It's one of the states where you have no asset test, so anybody can be part of the program! What the Democrats did: "President Bush used his regular Saturday radio address yesterday to explain and defend his veto of the massive expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) approved last week by Congress. ... An hour later on national radio, the Democrats' response to Bush was delivered by Baltimore private middle school student Graeme Frost, who, along with his sister, was seriously injured in an auto accident three years ago.

"His response to Bush was actually recorded earlier in the week and Matthew Hay Brown, a reporter from The Baltimore Sun, interviewed the young man after he did his recording. Frost said his parents work hard to provide for him and his sister, but one thing they can't afford is private health insurance, so they have to depend upon the government program, Brown reported for The Sun. Perfect illustration of why the SCHIP program should be expanded, right? Actually, no, because the Sun only reported the Democratic version of the story and we can't depend upon a mainstream media outlet like the Sun to get the rest of the story." Well, the rest of the story is: "It turns out the Frost family sends its kids to one of Baltimore's expensive private schools, owns a house in a neighborhood of homes valued in the $400,000-500,000 range and bought commercial property in 1999 for $160,000." What's the upshot of all this? This is nothing new. The Democrats lie! They have to in order to make their case. What was seductive to them was that this young man and his sister were severely injured in an auto accident, and they didn't have private insurance. "That's all we needed. That's all. Just smear the president. That's all we needed. We don't need any other details, because we know that our buddies in the mainstream media are not going to uncover the details, and, if they do uncover 'em, they're not going to report 'em -- and when they do get uncovered a couple weeks later, a day later, the story is already ours. We already own it."

So the bottom line for me is: They can't rely on truth to make their case for their cause. They have to lie. Be it about me, be it about their own voters (such as the Frosts) be it about President Bush, they must lie -- and anybody who stands in the way of their succeeding with that lie becomes an enemy, becomes a target. That's where I and my buddies in talk radio come in. We are a thorn in their side because we represent the truth they are trying to hide, the truth that they are lying about, and they have to do something about it -- and they have to do that by lying. The truth will not help 'em. The truth is inconvenient to today's Democrat Party and today's left. "Fiction" is their byword. Make it up. Make sure people cry about it. Have a lot of emotion attached to the fiction, and have no guilt about it. "Once you get past the lying, the rest is easy," is their philosophy. The kid, Graeme Frost, in one of his radio addresses, asked the question: "Why doesn't President Bush want children to have health care?" They send the kid out to lie. They filled this kid's head with lies just as they have some of these soldiers about me. Put lies in the kid's head or put it on the script that he's reading. He goes out and reads it. He's 12-years-old! They will use anybody! They'll corrupt anybody, to get where they're headed. That's who they are, folks.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_100807/content/01125112.guest.html

Piss on you Limpballs!

[cgrindley]

17. Freepers hardly ever get scholarships--they assume everyone is dense

You have any idea how smart you have to be to get private school tuition down to 500 bucks? You gotta be like George Orwell smart.

[comtec]

18. Or Al Gore smart

OR dougie Howser MD, or..... :)

[onehandle]

19. If you put an infinite number of monkeys at keyboards, eventually one will become...

...a conservative blogger.

Wait. Actually they all will. With their first keystrokes.

Idiots.

[Edith Ann]

23. Insurance

Maybe the insurance companies won't take them. I take synthroid and the insurance companies won't take me. If they do they want to put restrictions on the policy. I'm healthy and haven't been in a hospital since my 21 year old son was born. I also pay an enormous amount of money for insurance, 615.00 a month for a state high risk pool. The insurance companies control this. It has very limited coverage but I couldn't buy insurance if I wanted to. No one in Oklahoma will sell it to me. By the way, I was recently asked to be on their board. I would have been the only member representing the uninsured. The other 16 or so all represented insurance companies. My husband pays 735.00 a month. Maybe the cost is too prohibitive for this family of 4+. There maybe scholarships involved with the school. Most church schools have ways of getting their members in even though they don't have money. Republicans believe in bleeding every family for every dollar they have. Pretty soon we will be lucky if they let us have a house to live in and food to eat. The quality of these are of no concern to them.

[Justitia]

37. Amen! Thank you for pointing out what should be obvious, these kids are uninsurable by private plan

There is no way these kids are going to be underwritten by a private insurer considering their pre-existing conditions - it's a joke!

My son is in a similar situation, no matter what he is willing to pay, even if it were thousands a month, he will NEVER EVER be able to get private insurance because of his kidney failure.

THESE PEOPLE DO NOT LIVE IN THE REAL WORLD.

[Edith Ann]

41. Kidney failure

If your son is on dialysis and eligible for Medicare he can get a supplement within a 63 day period after medicare become effective. If he isn't on dialysis and works for himself or is unable to work your right he can't be insured. By the way a dialysis patient becomes eligible for medicare on the 1st day of the third month that they go on treatment. Then they have a window to buy a supplement. The American Kidney Fund will help with the cost if he needs help. Also medicare becomes immediately effective with a transplant or home dialysis, PD or Hemo. As the Dr. or the social worker in the dialysis unit or hospital. This may be more information than you wanted. It's just FYI.

[Justitia]

42. Thank you. Yes, he's on dialysis, Medicare, Medicaid, Medigap & the transplant list

I should have been more clear about my individual situation - he will not ever be able to get private medical insurance after a successful transplant.

As I think you know (because you seem knowledgeable on the subject), he'll have Medicare for 3 yrs after his transplant, then he loses it. This is terrible because he will need very expensive anti-rejection drugs (in addition to a host of other drugs) for the rest of his life. He will always be sick, even with a transplant (due to his genetic disease), and frankly, if he gets a good 10 yrs out of a transplanted kidney before he needs another one I'll be grateful. When he needs a new kidney we'll go through this all over again (with the initial loss of Medicare/Medicaid).

I can only worry so much about all this and getting him thru day-to-day is the most pressing, so I worry about getting him toward transplant and I'll just have to worry about the eventual loss of Medicare/Medicaid later. I'll just be happy with a transplant right now.

So many people are so clueless about what not having access to healthcare really means.
My son had two strokes before going to the ER because he was uninsured - he thought no one would see him and he didn't have enough money to pay the medical bills. We could have avoided those strokes and the resultant problems (seizures) and further aggravated damage to his kidneys.

Before all this happened he was a healthy, happy, self-supporting, hard working 23 year old young man. Life can change overnight and all the money in the world is not enough sometimes - King Midas couldn't afford the monthly bills for his care. Thank God for Medicare / Medicaid or my son would be dead.
I want all children to have access to healthcare, that's why I'm for SCHIP.

[cstanleytech]

24. Kinda sad that

they have sunk to the level that they need to attack a 12 year old child but then again it does not surprise me much with this current crop of republicans.
Makes me wonder when they are going to try something tougher though like say trying to figure out how to walk and chew gum at the same time.

[Odin2005]

26. The Pukes only care about children before they are born.

:puke:

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

28. This really proves our point....

As a self-employed person, Mr. Frost has the choice between investing in his business or buying health insurance. He can't do both -- he can either be self-employed and entrepreneurial, or he can work for a wage and benefits from somebody else. The high cost of health insurance is a considerable factor when individuals consider whether they can strike out on their own and start new businesses. So not having insurance universally available is stifling innovation and competition by keeping the next generation of Bill Gates' working in cubicles rather than creating new industries.

[kineneb]

35. exactly - the system DOES NOT reward initiative

The really creative self-employed are usually one sickness away from destitution. They can't afford to buy private health insurance, especially if they have kids. They know they are taking a risk, but some would not do well working for someone else. And these days, unless you have a full-time, well-paying job, there are NO benefits. So they can work at a drone job, and possibly get benefits or do what they love, and try to get by. SCHIP should be available to these people, below a reasonable income level. And $45K is not much with two children, especially if one has special needs.

No wonder we are going downhill...

(I facing a similar issue after Hubby dies. Due to mental health issues, I will be unable to work full-time, and no part-time job has benefits. So I will be unable to earn more than $600/month if I want coverage for my medicines. There are no rewards for working hard, other than a kick in the butt. Sigh.)

[RamboLiberal]

43. Exactly - Republicans love entrepreneurs BUT

they can't get it in their dense heads that the high price of health insurance sure does keep a lot of innovative people locked in to cubicles so they can retain employer provided health insurance.

And the entrepreneur will have a problem attracting employees w/o providing health insurance.

Also the cost of health insurance is killing many businesses in this country.

[Orsino]

29. Shows how frightened they are...

...of anything that slips through Big Money's filter and successfully humanizes those they want to keep invisible.

[pattmarty]

30. Yeah, that's how compassionate these ass holes are.

[Froward69]

31. the republicans are crude, and will do anything to keep power

We know this. yeah they try to curtail it so they can pillage the treasury for themselves. they try to point out "ABUSES" in the system or some"Privalaged" family recieving assistance. the humerous part is how close to the front of the line they will be with universal health care actually arrives?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

32. "The children were injured in a car accident for cripes sake. "

<voice of the RNC>

Well, in the future, they must remember to choose more wisely.

</voice of the RNC>

[superconnected]

34. apparently nobody taught conservatives what the word compassion

means.

[TrogL]

36. They believe in "self-reliance"

while complaining about the potholes in the streets.

[Justitia]

38. Yup, and they are ALWAYS turning down Soc Sec & Medicare for themselves & their parents, right?

Because that would be the honest thing to do if you hate these programs.

oops, I used "honest" - nevermind.

[Doctor_J]

39. Repukes are filth that should be flushed en masse

The world would be a far better place when Malkin is gone.

[damntexdem]

40. Not desperation at all -- swiftboating anyone and everyone is fully compatible with their approach.

They have no consciences regarding such things.

[tom_paine]

44. Hey, this is PROGRESS. In 1933, the German Bushies would have done much worse

to these people for speaking out for the opposition.

Intimidation, in either case is the name of the game.

I simply loathe Totalitarian Monsters and their Mindless Followers. And they have always been with the human race...always.

[alarimer]

47. This is really what conservatives are like.

They are mean and nasty. Picking on a 12 year old. I hate them, I really do.