Little Graham Graeme Frost of Baltimore addressed the nation this week as the Democratic spokesperson, pleading against President Bush’s promise to veto legislation that would expand S-CHIP health coverage for children. It has been a long road for Graham Graeme, aged 12, who was seriously injured in a traffic accident while on his bike. According to his mom, it would cost the family about $1200 per month for private insurance, if not for the government program, while the family takes in only about $45,000 a year. In an article in the Baltimore Sun, Graham’s Graeme’s father is characterized as a common woodworker. That is, until a blogger, calling himself
“icwhatudo” at Free Republic, however, showed rather more curiosity than the professional reporter paid to investigate the story and did a bit of Googling. Mr Frost, the “woodworker”, owns his own design company and the commercial property it operates from, part of which space he also rents out; they have a 3,000-sq-ft home on a street where a 2,000-sq-ft home recently sold for half a million dollars; he was able to afford to send two children simultaneously to a $20,000-a-year private school; his father and grandfather were successful New York designers and architects; etc. This is apparently the new definition of “working families”.
I’m glad little Graham Graeme and his family were able to get help, and I hope he reaches full rehabilitation. But perhaps the Democrats ought to take more care in the spokespeople they choose, if they wish to tug at our heartstrings.
Blue Crab Boulevard has the roundup.
Reactionary leftists lie.
It’s becoming an identity.
We’re all victims, Dan, didn’t you get the memo? The therapeutic state is the only answer, by the way.
Things will be so much better once our mouths are all clamped onto the teat of the Central State.
[…] Protein Wisdom: I’m glad little Graham and his family were able to get help, and I hope he reaches full rehabilitation. But perhaps the Democrats ought to take more care in the spokespeople they choose, if they wish to tug at our heartstrings. […]
Aren’t there group insurance programs for small businesses? That would have a monthly premium lower than $1200?
Well, to be fair, he’s probably the poorest person any elected Democrat knows.
“Reactionary leftists lie.” And so too do most liberal Democrats.
But they don’t lie all the time. Sometimes they just distort the truth beyond all recognition.
This makes me sick. Both for the fact that the Dems are exploiting this kid, and for the fact that his parents are exploiting my pocketbook to pay for their health insurance.
Yes, Rob, there are group insurance programs for small businesses. It’s cheaper for us to buy health insurance through our LLC than it is for my husband to insure our family through my husband’s public school job ($632 vs $1300). Granted, our copays for doctor’s visits and our deductible are pretty high, but not so high that we can’t go to the doctor if we need to. And dammit, we’re paying our own way!
I think we need to get this guy’s accountant – there’s obviously been some creative number-crunching going on.
[…] Protein Wisdom: I’m glad little Graham and his family were able to get help, and I hope he reaches full rehabilitation. But perhaps the Democrats ought to take more care in the spokespeople they choose, if they wish to tug at our heartstrings. […]
How does a family making 45K a year afford $40K in private school tuition? Something about this story doesn’t add up.
Dan and Jeff-
This story is too important to become a day’s worth of rage on the right. This situation with this family goes to the core of all that is wrong with federal programs that subsitute for individual responsibility. These parents obviously had no qualms with going public with their believe that others should be paying for something that they could well have done on their own had they not made selfish and irresponsilbe decisions for their family. Unfortunately, when this happens the rest of us are asked to step up and pay for their idiotic actions and worse, to make it a permanant program that further encourages this type of behavior from others. The Deomocrats need to be called on this. They chose the venue and the players and they need to pay the consequences. This could be the perfect storm for any future attempts to nationlize health care and any other programs that are an obvious attempt at pandering by the left.
I agree with you, Rick. But Jeff’s the one who does the substantive posts.
Yes. It appears that Dan just calls people names or something. Depending on who you listen to.
You know, nuance.
Yep. That’s me.
Phony SCHIP kids?
[…] Dan Collins concludes: I’m glad little Graham and his family were able to get help, and I hope he reaches full rehabilitation. But perhaps the Democrats ought to take more care in the spokespeople they choose, if they wish to tug at our heartstrings. […]
[…] Pundit, Wake Up America, Democracy Project, The Shotgun, Western Standard, Five Feet of Fury, Protein Wisdom, […]
[…] Dan Collins concludes: […]
“How does a family making 45K a year afford $40K in private school tuition? Something about this story doesn’t add up.”
I suspect that is something other than a gross wage figure…
In light of this, I’m going to continue to put change into the little jars at the Big Boy restaurants. I figure the locals who do this know whom they are dealing with.
Support the old civic clubs – Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary, Moose, Elks, etc. They just seem to do things, without all the scandal.
$45,000 a year the family is making.
Citizen Journalism wins again, just like it did for Jamil Hussein.
Of course, we’re not hearing nearly as many made-up stories from Jamil Hussein these days, so…agreed!
AJB – That post is drivel, at best. They offered no countering “facts”. They made assumptions, all of which fell in favor of the Dems, and used that as a basis for calling people names. But, on the Left, that is called fact-checking.
[…] to the left). What’s the true financial status of the Frosts? Probably somewhere in between what I reported last night and Faiz at Think Progress reports today. Posted by Dan Collins @ 5:29 pm | Trackback Share […]
How does a family making 45K a year afford $40K in private school tuition? Something about this story doesn’t add up.
Tab’s probably being picked up by the grandparents. They’ve been identified as being successful. They’re probably gifting the money’s to the kids for the tuition. You’re allowed to gift $11k per person, so each grandparent would give $11k to each kid, which would pay for their tuition.
And it’s a tax write-off for the g’parents, too! The gift that keeps on giving!