jumping SCHIP
Sorry, but I can't endure all the left's rhetoric about how heartless Bush doesn't care about the "poor" children without health insurance anymore. This story illustrates how ridiculous this issue has become.
The important bits:
On September 29th, 12 year old Graeme Frost of Maryland got to do the Democrats' radio address, in which he told his ( Read more... )
The important bits:
On September 29th, 12 year old Graeme Frost of Maryland got to do the Democrats' radio address, in which he told his ( Read more... )
Private schools often will give full scholarships to kids that need the help. They could have owned the home outright and not had a payment on it. They could have bought it years ago before property values went up so their Mortgage payments are lower than what would be expected in that area.
The point that I'm making is two-fold. You cannot assume that the family is well off based on the items listed in the blog excerpt above. You're making sweeping generalizations based on your own reality, not on the reality of the situation.
The other component of this article is one that hasn't truly been addressed. The child stated that their lives were saved because they were covered by SCHIP. If they didn't have insurance through the parent and would have been refused treatment if they had no coverage then his statement is true, regardless of any opinions regarding his parents' choices.
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1. What is the scholarship program at Park School?
Unless they are both getting full-ride scholarships, it's more expensive than public school. That money could have gone to health insurance. Yes, I'm assuming they didn't get a full-ride. Since it's one point of many, I think it's a fair assumption.
2. What is Mr. Frost's yearly net income?
The Baltimore Sun article claims it's $45K. That's quite small, to be sure, but not small enough to justify neglect to buy health insurance for your family, considering other expenses
3. How long have the Frosts owned their home?
Doesn't matter. If health insurance is the basic necessity that the left claims it is, they should have sold the home and purchased health insurance. If you can't afford food and you live in a $400K home, you sell the home and buy food.
4. Did the care that the children receive after the accident truly save their lives?
I fail to see why this matters. They needed treatment. Whether it saved their lives or just prevented a horrible quality of life, I'm stipulating that it was necessary treatment.
5. Was that care actually funded through SCHIP?
I'm choosing to believe the beginning of the article which states: "he told his story of how he and his sister were seriously injured in a car accident, and if it hadn't been for SCHIP, they wouldn't be here today." I think that's a fair premise to take.
I'm not claiming extreme extravagance. I'm not saying they own three Lexuses (Lexi?) and are burning money in their fireplace. I'm saying that they CHOSE not to buy health insurance. That's a bad choice. Government does not exist to bail people out of their bad choices using my money. The claim that they could not afford health insurance is crap because they could sell the expensive house, moved in somewhere cheaper, and bought health insurance. The claim from the left is that health insurance is such a basic necessity that government should provide it. If that's true, we should view people who choose to live in expensive homes and send their kids to expensive schools instead of buying health insurance the same way we would view someone living in a $400K house trying to get food stamps or welfare. It doesn't make sense.
If they didn't have insurance through the parent and would have been refused treatment if they had no coverage then his statement is true, regardless of any opinions regarding his parents' choices.
They would not have been denied treatment. You can't do that. Doctors in an ER cannot deny you treatment because you have no money. Perhaps on elective treatment, but in a trauma situation you cannot deny treatment. That's why the government spends so much on ER bills of people who cannot pay. That's why people argue for universal health insurance because (they argue) the amount of money we spend on ER bills for people who cannot pay would decrease.
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This last, cynical, economic argument is the one that gives me pause. If we, as a society, have already agree that we won't turn someone away (i.e., that we will pay) at the emergency room, then we've already agreed in principal to pay for universal health care; we just haven't agree to do it cost effectively, yet. I keep looking for a good counter argument for this, but I haven't found anything really satisfactory, yet.
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If that's what was being proposed as "universal health care" I could get behind that because it would only give it to people who REALLY needed it. That's not what is being proposed.
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