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.
You have to wonder where this fellow has been looking for health insurance except from your's and mine pocket???
$1200@month, which is way out of proportion, however, is just slightly above the tuition for Gemma's PRIVATE schrool. Can you spell grifters!!!
The article says their mortgage is $1,200, go figure!!!
PING
Writer.
Could you or your wife not get some kind of job with health insurance coverage through the employer?
I've done that in the past. Our family business is too small to offer health benefits.
You really cannot expect other taxpayers to subsidize your desire to be your own boss.
I don't. I expect medical care to be priced so that self-employed people can afford it.
We all know people who plod on in jobs they don’t like, jobs that don’t have much in the way of opportunity.
Seventeen years in the advertising business, working my way from copy boy to art director. Yes, I'm familiar with wage slavery.
Maybe you have to take one of those that provides health insurance.
I will, when COBRA runs out. It's a shame I have no other options.
Can’t you get a job at a Post Office? They have health insurance coverage and there are many Americans living on a Post Office salary.
I suppose so. If it comes down to it, I'll shovel shit in a stable. I'm used to being a disposable human resource, after all. Any self-respect or basic human dignity I once had was long ago beaten out of me by our wonderful capitalist economic system. For my wife and child, I'll do anything other than betray Christ.
The point is that I shouldn't have to. There is no logical reason that health care should be so expensive. Something, as I said, is wrong. I'm not smart enough to know what, exactly, but it's obvious that something's just not working.
And I'm healthy and skilled. What if I wasn't? What if I was crippled and couldn't get a Post Office job with health insurance benefits? The Post Office can't hire everyone, after all. Suppose a person can't work at all? Maybe they're alcoholic, or depressed, or just plain lazy. Are their sick kids supposed to just crawl off and die because Daddy's too drunk get on at the USPS?
As with Marxian socialism, ideological free-market capitalism does not track with reality as experienced by human beings in the real world. It works fine when one is discussing the relationship between the supply of and demand for pumpkins, pins, or some other disposable good or service without which people can live if they so choose; in reality, however, health care cannot be left to an unregulated free market to provide — for the very simple reason that people's lives are at stake. At the very least, sick children must be cared for, even if other people are "forced" to pay for that care at gunpoint by the cold hand of Government. Children's lives are not pumpkins. Joe Six-Pack is not going to squat next to his kid's bed while little Joey dies from fever and say "Oh, well, it's the Invisible Hand of the Free Market at work. Better luck next time, kid." What he will do, given no other options, is pick up a gun, join forces with other Joe Six-Packs, and overthrow the government. The system he and his fellow revolutionaries put into place is likely to be much worse than the one that preceded it.
The same goes for food and shelter. No country where people are allowed to starve in the streets or die coughing in the gutters for lack of money is going to survive very long. Fair or not, like it or not, there are certain things that everyone has to have — whether they deserve them or not — or else the fabric of society will be destroyed. That's reality.
(To a Christian, of course, there is no such thing as being "forced to" care for the sick. It is the proud duty of every Christian to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the sick — even if the needy don't deserve it.)
I'm not a capitalist, but neither am I a socialist. I don't want government-paid health care, or government-paid anything else. Amtrak's service is lousy, and I don't think the Feds have any more business running a clinic than they have running a railroad. In the cases of both health care and railroads, however, government does have a legitimate function however: the function of providing infrastructure. The Feds pay for seaports, canals, highways, airports, and air traffic control infrastructure, which is then used by privately-owned businesses operating on a for-profit basis; so too should they provide infrastructure for railroads, not the rail passenger service itself. In like manner, the Feds should not be providing medical services directly; instead, they should provide infrastructure (in the form of vouchers) good for treatment at any participating privately-owned, for-profit medical care establishment. This would provide a guarantee of health care for all Americans while preserving the free-market system of choice that ensures quality care.
Yes, I can get a job somewhere that has health benefits — but not everyone is as capable as I am. For those who aren't, some way has to be found to keep them from dying in the streets, or else sooner or later we're going to end up with real socialized medicine. That's all I'm saying.
Does that also covers the passengers, or only the owner of the vehicle and how much is the coverage max. in $$$ ???
It's not even close to being an "unregulated free market". The government has it's sticky little fingers in every aspect of it which is a huge problem, not to mention the ambulance chasing trial lawyers who are more like buzzards.
If you can't afford to pay for a child, you should wait until you can or work more than one job if you really want a child that badly. We have worked two jobs (and sometimes three) in order to pay for things we needed or wanted (mostly wanted). When you think about it there aren't that many things in life that we really need.
. It is the proud duty of every Christian to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the sick — even if the needy don't deserve it.
It should be the CHOICE of the Christian (or anyone else) to decide for themselves if they want to care for others, not the government stealing it from us and forcing us to pay for others.
Thanks for the good work on this ! Truth will set us free-
” ...Could you or your wife not get some kind of job with health insurance coverage through the employer? ...”
Wondering why employers are expected to pick up the tab — or part of it ??
Shouldn’t we look at the insurance companies practice of short-paying Docs ?
Shouldn’t we look at pricing and competetivness ?
Maybe Docs could start shunning insurance ???
Maybe Docs could post prices ???
????? Let’s rethink the whole health-insurance tyranny that is currently creating this “crisis” .
by jove I think shes got it! exactly.
“We are a solidly middle-class family of three. I am self-employed and cannot afford medical insurance. Mrs Chan works for our family business, which has no employee health insurance (too expensive).
...We do not live extravagantly. We own a solid, red-brick 1952 rambler of 1300 ft2 that we are renovating little by little, which is located in a old center-city neighborhood. I have a BMW (a 1984 318i, 200,000 miles±) and she drives our Toyota (a 1995 4Runner, 195,000± miles), both paid for, with full-coverage insurance ...We have no dogs, no Tivo, no boat, and no plasma TV. We live frugally.
And we still can’t afford health insurance.
Something’s wrong. I’m not saying that Hillary is right, and I’m not claiming that the Frost family deserves government-sponsored health care — but when a hardworking, frugal middle-class family such as we cannot find affordable health insurance, something is wrong.”
You are right BC. Doing everything you can, and not being super human... I think there are a number of things wrong
and certainly none of us wants gvmnt to step in.
We need to either eliminate health insurance and pay Docs the old fashioned way (with chickens and whiskey) , or create buyers pools/co-ops where people can associate for the sole reason of buying health insurance *ick* .
Also the pricing structure and tranparency MUST be easily available to patients.
How many here ask Doc how much a visit/exam/procedure costs?
Why would we when the Insurance pays for it ??
If Docs (sorry Docs ) had to compete for patients and not for insurance providers maybe things would become. reasonable ????
That's a great line! Problem is, the Invisible Hand of the Free Market CAN'T work in the American health insurance industry, because that industry has been so heavily encumbered by socialism already. It's hardly recognizable as a "market" anymore.
You're trapped in a system where private costs have escalated beyond your means. Why? Because of cost-shifting from the socialized segment of the "market" (Medicare and Medicaid recipients).
Yes, I can get a job somewhere that has health benefits — but not everyone is as capable as I am.
You might be surprised what "less capable" people could do -- if they had to.
I'm sympathetic to you B-Chan, and I wish you luck with the baby. I also wish I could donate my many years of totally un-used health insurance to your family (you'd have to knock me unconscious to get me into a doctor's office or emergency room!). But alas, it doesn't work that way.
Perhaps we need to eliminate the framing of the debate;
Insurance -vs- Government payer...
Make a different frame entirely.
Haven’t a clue what to frame it but we must fundamentally change the debate.
There are a lot of good reasons why modern high quality healthcare is expensive. I don’t see anyone dying in the streets because he/she can’t get medical care. In fact, just the opposite: I’ve seen modern medical practice keep people on expensive life support paid for by Medicare or Medicaid. Whether thats right or wrong is a whole other issue but it is certainly the fact of the matter in the US.
The Democrats really made a terrible mistake on this extending SCHIP. A whole lot of people - like me - never thought about this program and it could have gone on forever without being an issue to me. But here’s this family that is already on the program as it currently exists and I’m thinking this family is probably gaming the system and if I had all the facts, I would probably very much disapprove and now the Democrats want to extend it to millions more at higher incomes. From a non-issue, its become something I will probably decide that I’m against.
Did Bonnie have auto insurance?
And were these children wearing seatbelts???
Of course, Americans DO pay for a lot of healthcare without insurance: veterinary care for their pets. There are loads of vets around where I live but its sometimes hard to get an appointment. Its always a hefty bill to go to a vet and theres no insurance picking up any of it. Would anyone be surprised if the Frosts have pets and took them to the vet when they are sick and paid the bill themselves? But when it comes to their own children, there is a mentality of entitlement that the whole of society has a responsibility and that it would be a very good thing if medical care for your children was entirely provided by the government.
>If they can buy investment real estate, remodel kitchens, and pay 40K tuition for the kids on “45K per year”, I’d say we need a bill to increase funding for IRS audits.<
One or both parents probably has a trust fund. That wouldn’t show up in the income he makes from his business.
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:IGqy5WBAeQ0J:www.topix.net/content/trb/2176213971066190884936279340141455054324+%22Bonnie+Sebring%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us
Valid point. But wouldn’t a couple of trust fund babies have enough sense to get some health insurance? Guess not.
My thoughts when I first saw this picture was “That’s a damn ice kitchen. Can’t get one like that on $45,000 a year, I know!”
My point was that if you had two children who had suffered brain injuries, you either could not get insurance for them or it would be too expensive. I DO agree that they should have had it before and it would seem to make sense for mom to find a job with insurance.
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