Posted on 10/06/2007 10:42:57 PM PDT by icwhatudo
Graeme Frost, who gave the democrat rebuttal to George Bush’s reasons for vetoing the SCHIP Bill, is a middle school student at the exclusive$20,000 per year Park School in Baltimore, MD.
Graeme was in a severe car accident three years ago, and received care paid for by the government program known as SCHIP-(State Children's Health Insurance Program)
"I was in a coma for a week and couldn't eat or stand up or even talk. My sister was even worse," Graeme wrote. "My parents work really hard and always make sure my sister and I have everything we need, but we can't afford private health insurance."
His sister Gemma, also severely injured in the accident, attended the same school prior to the accident meaning the family was able to come up with nearly $40,000 per year for tuition for these 2 grade schoolers. Confirmation both attended Park found here using edit-"find on this page"-Gemma. It will take you to an article in the schools newspaper about a fundraiser for Gemma class of 16, and Graeme class of 13.
Here are photos of the school's 44,000 square foot Wyman Arts Center: two galleries, an outdoor ampitheater, Meyerhoff Theater, Macks-Fidler Black Box Theater, practice rooms, rehearsal space, and ceramics, 3-D sculpture, woodworking, jewelry, painting, photography, digital graphics studios, recording studio, and keyboard lab.
In a Baltimore Sun article the family claims to be raising their four children on combined income of about $45,000 a year. "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."
What the article does not mention is that Halsey Frost has owned his own company "Frostworks",since this marriage announcement in the NY Times in 1992 so he chooses to not give himself insurance. He also employed his wife as "bookkeeper and operations management" prior to her recent 2007 hire at the "medical publishing firm". As her employer, he apparently denied her health insurance as well.
His company, Frostworks, is located at 3701 E BALTIMORE ST. A building that was purchased for $160,000 in 1999. The buildings owner is listed as DIVERSIFIED INDUSTRIAL DESIGN CENTER, LLC whose mailing address is listed as 104 S Collington Ave which is the Frost's home. The commercial property he owns is also listed as the business address for another company called Reillys Designs which leads to the question of whether rental income is included in the above mentioned salary total
The current market value of their improved 3,040 SF home at 104 S Collington Ave is unknown but 113 S COLLINGTON AVE, also an end unit, sold for $485,000 this past March and it was only 2,060 SF. A photo taken in the family's kitchen shows what appears to be a recent remodeling job with granite counter tops and glass front cabinets
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...maybe Dad should drop his woodworking hobby and get a real job that offers health insurance rather than making people like me (also with 4 kids in a 600sf smaller house and tuition $16,000 less per kid and no commercial property ownership) pay for it in my taxes.
They could buy a used car and pay for health insurance with the money now going for SUV payments. At least some of it.
GOD BLESS THE INTERNET~!!!!!!
““I was driving and my car hit black ice and I lost control of it and I slammed into a tree. Gemma hit the tree and Graeme hit a window,” Bonnie said.”
No seat belts, no surprise.
I was thinking the same thing. $45K in income. Two kids, each of which cost $20K to go to school. How does the family pay the mortgage on 5K a year?
I heard about this from Rush’s show this morning. Congrats! You belong in the FReeper Hall of Fame!
I just got around to reading this ‘outting’.
Without the internet, this would have gone unreported.
Duh, Ms. Anderson. Doesn't matter what they paid for it when they bought it (which appears to have been seventeen years ago, according to those very public records Ms. Anderson cites***).
Houses have appreciated A LOT since 1990, even with the real estate bubble bust.
The house is worth something like $360,000 now (as zillow.com would indicate). Did Ms. Anderson ask if the Frosts had ever looked into a home equity loan, rather than soaking the taxpayer?
Then there's the private fund set up for the Frost's childrens' medical expenses (see post 220 above).
Did Ms. Anderson look into that? (Nah, why do I even bother asking.)
***Also the 104 S Collington address does not appear to be the Frost's "principal residence," according to the same public record.
Well, we can at least look at the bright side. Now that these Democrat lying scum have been outed, I'm sure it perked up someones ears at the IRS, who will no doubt be looking as far back as the law allows into their income tax declarations and deductions.
I suspect by the time it's all over, that kid will be back in a coma, not from any car accident, but from the beating he'll get from his "poor, hardworking pappy" for opening his mouth.
Kudo's to the Freeper who exposed these lying frauds. It does do a lot of damage to claims made by idiots like Micheal Moore, who holds up people like these as "victims" of America's health care system, and to those who support these claims and try force these lies onto the general public, like Opra.
I wonder if she will apologize on her show for not investigating these lying fraudsters better before mentioning their "plight" on shows where she gives a forum to the health care con-artist ring leaders like Micheal Moore.
I highly doubt it.
This is just one bad apple from a barrel of good ones. That health care plan WAS needed! One example is the decision to ban MDI inhalers. Appx 5% of all asthmatic people cannot use the new inhalers. They cannot afford or have been denied specialized health care and alternative methods are not covered by insurance and are too costly to pay cash for. I know because I am part of the 5%. Alternative health care would cost me a min of $750 a month. The new healthcare plan would have helped me pay for services that could save my life. Instead everyone is turning their heads away to see the bad apples not the people it could actually help!
Ms. Anderson likes her version better. The facts just cloud the message.
It’s just an example of what Coulter said, the democrats figured how could you attack the message if it was delivered by a 12-year-old who suffered a terrible car accident?
You can tell Halsey is from a prominent family, otherwise the Times would not have listed an out of state wedding.
Didn’t matter, for some reason the state covered their medical bills.
Which brings up another point — this kid got insurance through the program AS IT EXISTED ALREADY. Bush wanted to put an extra 5 billion into the program to continue it. Bush’s plan would have covered this kid.
The Democrats decided instead to expand the program to cover richer and older and illegal people, and Bush vetoed that.
You can tell Halsey is from a prominent family, otherwise the Times would not have listed an out of state wedding.
I want to congratulate you on not only your diligent research, but for presenting it without bombast and name-calling. This is Free Republic at its finest, and the subsequent blogosphere and radio attention to this thread is an indication of what kind of activity will get FR could be taken more seriously.
Instead everyone is turning their heads away to see the bad apples
Nobody here I know of is against helping someone who really needs help. Welcome aboard, you’ll really like the fast updates.
Was Graeme wearing his seat belt when he hit the tree and a window?
This couple and their family are nothing but a group of con artists! They get SCHIP to pay their medical expenses - what about the auto insurance? How are they paying for private school for two elementary school kids? And on top of that raise money in their community. The whole thing stinks to high heaven and I hope the IRS is on them like an owl on a field mouse!
Well, her husband said nobody should have to ask if they have medical insurance, so maybe he feels the same way about car insurance.
If they have an accident, someone ELSE should pay for the damages, like the taxpayers. Why should HE have to pay for his own medical care?
They have 4 kids. Maybe they should use some of that 45 thousand to buying a good pack of condoms.
When you own the company, you can "pay yourself" what ever salary you want, within reason. It has to be believable, and at least pass a quick look over by the IRS.
I suspect the company check book has been paying for a lot of things, like tuition, remodling, "company" cars, a cabin in the woods, RV's etc. and be written off as a business expense of one kind or another.
IF the IRS takes an interest in this guy, they are going to go back as far as they can 7 years or more, with a fine toothed comb.
Not only will this guy have a lot of back taxes to cough up, he may have many other charges to deal with depending on how many government programs he took advantage of by being "poor" on paper, and of course tax evasion charges.
It will be interesting if Pelosi and Reid provide free lawyering for them, considering they were the ones who wrote the script for this "phony poor family".
I wonder if Pelosi and Reid may be on the hook for charges as well, or at least be held responsible for LYING to the public, organizing as phoney story in order to advance their cause.
The GOP should demand a formal inquiry into their actions, you could be sure the RATS would insist on one had this been a republican scam.
Dance, little toad!
It’s John Denver!!!
Not sure, in previous post only Bonnie was indicated as wearing a seat belt.
way to go in uncovering this...you is famous now ...good internet sleuthing
Was Bonnie ticketed for driving too fast for road conditions?
They are indeed a prominent family.
By coincidence I researched Halsey family genealogy (the New Jersey branch) for a town history project a few years ago.
The Halseys of my town were very prominent and very wealthy throughout the 1800s; one here fought in the Civil War (and I put a flag on his grave in our historic cemetery).
Admiral "Bull" Halsey, commander of the U.S. Third Fleet in the South Pacific during WWII, is one of the more recent famous Halseys. Admiral Halsey's slogans were "Kill Japs, Kill Japs, Kill More Japs!" and "Hit hard, hit fast, hit often."
But recent descendants of our local Halsey branch have gone far, far to the Left. They left NJ for New England and became wealthy advocates for international "family planning" (read: abortion); and for "understanding" with the Soviet Union.
Who banned “MDI Inhalers”, so that you have to use new ones? Explain a little better, for those of us who do not know all the latest info about asthmatics.
-PJ
What’s really scary is that no claim is ever denied by the insurance companies that provide the SCHIP program. I wonder which Republican-run companies lobbied for this increase.
Great question!
Every article I've seen studiously avoids mention of a driver (or of the driver's car insurance). They're all worded something like this:
"Graeme and his 9-year-old sister, Gemma, were passengers in the family SUV in December 2004 when it hit a patch of black ice and slammed into a tree."
Seems to have been another case of an SUV driving itself.
The passive voice is the voice of a liar 90% of the time.
“Mistakes were made.”
I haven’t posted here in years (no particular reason) and am a rabid non-partisan lover of simple truth. I don’t know if I hit the right reply button.
I think this is good work that you did and want to commend you. I found this story via atrios via whiskeyfire (liberal blogs) and made a few - I thought - polite, reasonable comments on Whiskeyfire (I’m Karen) and then wanted to reply to M_McLuhan and got a message that I wasn’t allowed to post comments. Thats terrible. They don’t want honest debate or discussion.
http://whiskeyfire.typepad.com/whiskey_fire/2007/10/next-time-you-g.html#comments
It seems so likely that this family is being subsidized by wealthy parents and may well have the equivalent of a $200,000 pre tax income. Taxpayers should not subsidize them. And even if their income really is $45,000 its not fair to take from other taxpayers rather than for the parents to do what they can to make more money. They are both college grads, after all.
No bank in their right mind would give a mortgage (which is $1200/mo they claim) for around $200,000 to people with a "combined" income of $45,000 and 4 kids to support. Obviously, the bank was given much different information and list of assets for them to secure a mortgage loan of that size.
In this case, your screen name is very appropriate. Excellent work!
ping for later
The loopy Dems are so delirious and hateful of everything Bush/GOP, they couldn't see a freakin' stampede of buffalo if it was about to run them over.
They blind themselves to truth -
Because dems are too busy telling us we need to give money to kids like this.
When you start defining everyone as 'poor' and 'suffering', those who are truly in need hurt the worst because the resources that people may want to go to them are diluted down through all the $40k per year private school, $400k house middle class people the dems now claim are poor.
Don't know about a mortgage, but it looks to me as if their house on S. Collington house was sold for $55,000 on 11/30/1990 (see public record below). I'm not familiar with Maryland's format, so I'm not sure exactly who the buyer was in that transaction, but it looks to me as if it was the Frosts.
The "not arms length" transfer listed that is dated 9/06/2005 (which would have been after the SUV accident of December, 2004), for $52,500, looks to me like some kind of legal formality, like a transfer between family members.
(But I'm not a real estate expert -- maybe some FReeper realtor or lawyer can figure out what it means):
Maryland Department of Assessment and Taxation
Account Identifier: Ward - 01 Section - 01 Block - 1748 Lot - 017
Owner Information
Owner Name: FROST, F. HALSEY
FROST, BONNIEUse: RESIDENTIAL Principal Residence: NO Mailing Address: 104 S COLLINGTON AVE
BALTIMORE MD 21231-2014
Deed Reference: 1) FMC/ 6744/ 954
2)Location & Structure Information
Premises Address Legal Description 104 S COLLINGTON AVE 16X123 BALTIMORE 21231-2014
Map Grid Parcel Sub District Subdivision Section Block Lot Assessment Area Plat No: 1 1 1748 17 3 Plat Ref:
Special Tax Areas Town Ad Valorem Tax Class
Primary Structure Built Enclosed Area Property Land Area County Use 1936 3,040 SF 11130
Stories Basement Type Exterior 3 YES END UNIT BRICK Value Information
Base Value Value Phase-in Assessments As Of
01/01/2006As Of
07/01/2007As Of
07/01/2008Land 40,000 100,000 Improvements: 105,680 163,140 Total: 145,680 263,140 223,986 263,140 Preferential Land: 0 0 0 0 Transfer Information
Seller: FROST, F HALSEY Date: 09/06/2005 Price: $52,500 Type: NOT ARMS-LENGTH Deed1: FMC/ 6744/ 954 Deed2:
Seller: MUTH, THOMAS A Date: 11/30/1990 Price: $55,000 Type: IMPROVED ARMS-LENGTH Deed1: SEB/ 2687/ 545 Deed2:
Seller: Date: Price: Type: Deed1: Deed2: Exemption Information
Partial Exempt Assessments Class 07/01/2007 07/01/2008 County 000 0 0 State 000 0 0 Municipal 000 0 0
Tax Exempt: NO Special Tax Recapture: Exempt Class: * NONE *
However, they’ve had their house for 17 years and paid about 160,000 for it, no?
This would mean a much lower mortgage. They could also have put a large down payment on the house, yielding an even lower mortgage.
It is possible to have explanations for their financial situation within the set of facts that we have been given. What chaps my hide is when one of the kids is used as a prop (like he was on Bill Maher’s show) asking why Bush doesn’t want kids to have health care.
I stand corrected. They bought it for $55,000. Good for them.
He doesn’t need government assistance, he needs a financial planner.
A quick claim deed?
-PJ
Does it look like Frost’s father was the one who bought the property from Muth in ‘90? Ergo, the younger Frosts may have been living there as a gift from the elder Frosts and that improvements to the property may have been paid for by the elder Frosts (as they were the owners) and then the property was transferred to the younger Frosts for only $52,500 in 2005.
The elder Frosts could “gift” a lot of money every year to a family of 6. Would that money have to be reported on the SCHIP forms?
Huh? You signed up today to post that?
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