The Baltimore Sun has decided to get into the act on the Frost family:
The Frosts say the description of their
family’s circumstances now circulating is misleading. Halsey, they say,
is a self-employed woodworker – he has no employees – while Bonnie
works part time for a medical publishing firm. Together, they say, they
earn between $45,000 and $50,000 a year.That would make the Frosts eligible for Maryland’s
Children’s Health Program, which is open to families that earn no more
than 300 percent of the federal poverty level, or $82,830 a year for a
family of six.The Frosts declined to show The Sun their 2006 income
tax returns, and the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
would not confirm their enrollment in the program. But John G.
Folkemer, the deputy secretary for health care financing, said
yesterday that applicants must prove their income levels through Social
Security numbers or tax returns to be accepted for coverage.Folkemer said a family’s assets are not considered in
determining eligibility. Halsey Frost purchased the family home for
$55,000 in 1990, according to city records, and refinanced in 2005, he
says, to make improvements to accommodate the return of Graeme and
Gemma from the hospital. The 1936 brick rowhouse, on a side street near
Patterson Park, has an assessed value of $263,140.
All well and good but the fact remains, this family is currently eligible for the SCHIP program at 3x the poverty level. In plain English this means they are NOT in poverty. And this Congress wants to expand it even more to include families who make up to 80 grand a year. When will it stop?
Well, if the liberals get their way it will stop when complete Socialism is enacted from coast to coast.
Either way you look at it the liberals have spun this story way out of control into the always typical “conservatives hate kids” story. The fact of the matter is no one is saying that these children, now that they are in this situation, shouldn’t have proper medical care. The issue we are bringing up is one of responsibility. The responsibility to provide for and protect his/her family is NOT the role of Government by handing out tax dollars to those who are fully capable of providing for their family.
This family was and is not poor, they chose to put money that could of gone towards health care into other things. They chose wrong.
Responsibility.
But as Scott Malensek noted in his earlier comment on this thread, the Democrats have made this an issue by including 35 billion into the bill, which they knew the President wouldn’t sign:
But this thread is not at all about how SCHIP was nixed because of a socialized medicine aspect.
IT
WAS
NOTIt was nixed because Democrats who finished crafting the bill in
committee (see, Dems control the committees now, so no bill gets out
unless it’s crafted to their liking) chose to expand the coverage so
that it no longer helps just poor American kids. They modified it to
cover kids in families that can afford the insurance AND to cover
NON-AMERICANS!?So if anyone wants to discuss the merits of the SCHIP, the question
is not about providing medical coverage to poor kids-W and Republicans
want to do that-the question is why did Dems modify the bill so that it
can’t be accepted by Republicans? Must be another example of that new
spirit of bi-partisanship that Speaker Pelosi ranted about when she
took the gavel, right?Anyone wanting to discuss the SCHIP doa, should ignore the entire
issue of providing medical coverage to poor kids as everyone wants
that. The better question is why did Dems poison it in committee to die
in public?
We all know why. They wanted to get a photo moment by writing a speech for a kid to tug on the heartstrings of the people.
I’ll end this by noting that the Baltimore Sun decided to go trolling for comments on Republican blogs that would “shock” people.
The Redstate contributor was less civil.
“Hang ’em. Publically,” the contributor wrote. “Let ’em twist in the
wind and be eaten by ravens. Then maybe the bunch of socialist patsies
will think twice.”
I guess they just missed all those disgusting comments about hoping Cheney dies, or that they are praying for Bush to choke on a pretzel. Or a few others Confederate Yankee found:
How quickly he forgets that Daily Kos posters planned to do
opposition research to hopefully “out” the son of Supreme Court nominee
John Roberts… until it was discovered he was four-years old.It is an obscure left-wing blogger that has become the poster-child for cyberstalking.
And while Klein intones that it is only a mater of time before a
conservative does something horrible, the fact remains that to date,
only a left-wing Indymedia journalist has been driven to murder purely to make a political statement.
Must of just slipped under their radar huh?
Sigh….
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