***UPDATES BELOW***CONTRARY POPULAR OPINION, THE MACMAN HAS THE FACTS!

This was predictable:

“Here are the facts that the right-wing distorted in order to attack young Graeme:

1) Graeme has a scholarship to a private school. The school costs $15K a year, but the family only pays $500 a year.

2) His sister Gemma attends another private school to help her with the brain injuries that occurred due to her accident. The school costs $23,000 a year, but the state pays the entire cost.

3) They bought their “lavish house” sixteen years ago for $55,000 at a time when the neighborhood was less than safe.

4) Last year, the Frost’s made $45,000 combined. Over the past few years they have made no more than $50,000 combined.

5) The state of Maryland has found them eligible to participate in the CHIP program.

Desperate to defend Bush’s decision to cut off millions of children from health care, the right wing has stooped to launching baseless and uninformed attacks against a 12 year old child and his family.

Right wing bloggers have been harassing the Frosts, calling their home numerous times to get information about their private lives. Compassionate conservatism indeed.”

Awwww,

First, TP lists no citation for their “facts”, but even if they are true it is evident that this family - living in a $400,000 home and choosing to send their kids to private school - no matter the cost - can cut a few corners to fund their own health insurance. The simple fact is that they don’t want to. They want you and I to.

Besides it’s the Democrats who have exploited this family (their stock in trade) and apparently they chose wrongly. Capt Ed makes a good point:

“However, if they refer to the financial standing of the Frosts, that’s no smear — it’s an answer to the argument made by the Democrats. They had the Frosts pose as a typical family that needs S-CHIP to make ends meet. I think it’s quite germane that this family made choices like purchasing a 3,000-square-foot house and commitments to expensive private schools ahead of that health insurance coverage. This is a means-tested entitlement, and the level of means has everything to do with the debate. Most people I know don’t live in houses of that size regardless of how many children they have, and most people who require federal subsidies don’t own their own businesses and investment properties. Including people with those assets in a federal subsidies program pretty much makes means testing pointless.

The Democrats chose the Frosts, not their conservative critics. If they chose poorly, that reflects on S-CHIP, too.”

Again, I have a wife who has survived cancer (twice) and has ongoing medical conditions. I make 40,000 a year and struggle to pay insurance but pay I do. I won’t even get into the outstanding medical bills. I don’t drive a fancy car or have a hope in prayer of buying a house such as theirs. Nevertheless, the Frosts have made crappy financial decisions and are wrong to expect the government to bail them out.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn classic:

“Sorry, no sale. The Democrats chose to outsource their airtime to a Seventh Grader. If a political party is desperate enough to send a boy to do a man’s job, then the boy is fair game. As it is, the Dems do enough cynical and opportunist hiding behind biography and identity, and it’s incredibly tedious. And anytime I send my seven-year-old out to argue policy you’re welcome to clobber him, too. The alternative is a world in which genuine debate is ended and, as happened with Master Frost, politics dwindles down to professional staffers writing scripts to be mouthed by Equity moppets.”

And clobber them we shall. Let’s not forget this isn’t about the Frosts as much as it is about the shoving of universal health care down out throats by trotting out the “childrens”.

By the way, what is it with Democrats? They love kids so long as they’re not a “nusance” or “inconvenient” or god forbid “an accident”. In those cases they just want to poke holes in their heads and pull them out of the mother piece by piece.

UPDATE I: Baltimore Reporter reminds us of the numerous fakes, and outright frauds the Democrats have pimped out before the people only to get caught, time and time again.

Here’s my favorite fake of all time!

UPDATE III: About that 1200 per month insurance policy quoted on the Frosts? Er….not quite.

“The Frost family has a combined annual income of about $45,000, said Bonnie Frost. She and her husband have priced private health insurance, but they say it would cost them more per month than their mortgage - about $1,200 a month. Neither parent has health insurance through work.

$1200 per month for a family of 6 in Baltimore. Really? What are they smoking?

A check of a quote engine for zip code 21250 (Baltimore) finds a plan for $641 with a $0 deductible and $20 doc copays.

Adding a deductible of $750 (does not apply to doc visits) drops the premium to $452. That’s almost a third of the price quoted in the article. Doesn’t anyone bother to check the facts?

Apparently not.”

The more you know?

UPDATE IV:  For those missing the point, here is it. 

A family with a 3,000-square-foot home, commercial property, private schools and moneyed grandparents are not “poor” or “needy” people who should expect to be on the government dole, and to accept that they are is to redefine the relationship between the state and the citizen in deeply damaging ways. Middle-class entitlements are one of the principal causes of Europe’s terminal enervation. As another reader pointed out, that’s why left-wing politicians are so resistant to means-testing - or even, as the Frost case illustrates, the most rudimentary consideration of a family’s true financial situation. Because, for the left, it’s not about addressing need or providing a “safety net” but about the annexation by government of key areas of life.”

If that’s hard to understand, then you can¬†leave off the “moderate” or “independent” lable.¬†¬†You¬†are a liberal.