hillbillypolitics.com

Posted by hillbilly on October 11th, 2007 in Politics General

Either I’m not finding the right articles or “they” (the media and bloggers) did not ask the right questions.

If Congress had simply voted to extend the SCHIP program would the Frosts be without coverage now? Not according to this New York Times Article:

[...]   Under the Maryland child health program, a family of six must earn less than $55,220 a year for children to qualify. The program does not require applicants to list their assets, which do not affect eligibility. [...]

So, as an argument to significantly expand a program to cover adults as well as children, they threw the children to the wolves, so to speak, and now want to blame conservatives? Bush had indicated that he would sign legislation extending the bill including some extra funding but the Democrats weren’t satisfied with that and had to push. Now, it’s all the conservatives’ faults?

The Baltimore Sun along with others have described the boy, Graeme Frost, as having significant brain trauma:

[...]  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. Both were taken to a hospital with severe brain trauma. Graeme was in a coma for a week and still requires physical therapy.  [...]

Further in the story it tells of how young Mr. Frost became the poster child for SCHIP:

[...]   Graeme said the recording in a studio at the Democratic National Committee headquarters “took quite a few takes.” But Democratic staffers said he finished the job in fewer attempts than some senators.

“One of the pleasures that the speaker and I have is, we submit who’s going to give the radio address,” Reid said. “And we decided that we wanted, this week, to have a real heavyweight.”  [...]

How much brain trauma is he experiencing if he can do this in a shorter amount of time than some Senators? Or are they saying that this brain damaged kid is smarter than some Senators? The answers to these questions that should have been asked at the outset, but don’t seem to have been, are part of the whole picture.

Either way, Graeme Frost isn’t a heavyweight, while he was used to cloud the entire issue. He qualified under the old SCHIP legislation. Expanding the legislation wouldn’t have affected him at all, while the Democrats’ attempts to expand it beyond reasonable expectations has affected not only the Frost family but all the other kids who suddenly find themselves without medical coverage.

If they really wanted a heavyweight, they should have picked somebody from that upper income range and gave the facts and figures why the expansion was a necessity, but, they didn’t. Instead, they shouted the rallying cry, “It’s for the children!” to cover up the realities of what they attempted to do.