“This is the scenario I laid out:
· Husband, age 62 (which I’ll be in 2-years)
…

Earned income of $2289 a month by wife at job without medical benefits. (My wife is not currently working, being a house-mom.)

What an outrage! If I give incorrect details of my circumstances, even I can qualify! Clearly this programme is broken.

Also, I love the way the post ends up being an unintentionally ringing endorsement of S-CHIP. “Thanks to private health insurance, we can barely afford to live a normal life. Thank God we don’t have socialised medicine or we’d have to enjoy the fruits of capitalism instead of sitting at home eating pasta.”

damn liberal, spending money to enjoy yourself…..

Kesler led many pro-Vietnam activities during these years. For example, in 1967

I’m sure he means “pro-US Operations in Vietnam” rather than to imply that he was supporting the government of Vietnam?

Bruce Kesler, Contributing Writer

Bruce Kesler has for the past 15-years owned an employee benefits and individual’s planning consulting and brokerage firm, operating nationally, based in the San Diego area. His many earned credentials and deep technical knowledge in these areas, and abilities to tie them in to the practicalities and technicalities of corporate and personal tax, accounting and other regulations is based on his prior 15-years as a finance and business operations executive for Fortune 100 and multinational companies, including Crown-Zellerbach, ITT and Olivetti, and smaller natural resource, production and electronics companies.

Kesler’s undergrad education was at Brooklyn College of C.U.N.Y., graduating in 1968 with a major in Economics and minor in International Affairs. In 1965, Kesler was enraged by an anti-American handout. Brooklyn College (also known as the “little Red school house” from decades earlier reputation) held its first student elections since the 1930’s. Kesler entered as the sole “conservative”, not really knowing what that is but so-described by comparison to the other 30+ candidates, mostly various shades of far-left, and won for the next 3-years. Not realizing what he’d accomplished, but recognized by others, his mentors came largely from distinguished Freedom House members. Kesler led many pro-Vietnam activities during these years. For example, in 1967, he helped with the organization of New York City’s Support Our Men In Vietnam parade, the longest since World War II. In 1968, Kesler worked in the initial Nixon candidacy, resigning when in his stubborn idealism he felt not all there were so “pure.”

(Ed. note: an econ major who doesn’t know what a conservative was, then morph’s into Dr. Strangelove, seeking purity. Nice fella.)

Believing in walking the talk, after graduating college, Kesler volunteered for the Marine Corps, as an enlisted Marine. He rose to Sergeant, probably due to his education rather than being John Wayne (and humbled by the truly professional Marines of then and today), serving in intelligence in Vietnam during 1969-70. Waiting to enter graduate school, in the Spring of 1971, Kesler again became enraged, this time by the one-sided mass media publicity given John Kerry and his tiny band of real and fake Vietnam veterans’ slanders against America and those who served in Vietnam. He quickly rounded up other Vietnam veterans and formed the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace.

The New York Times published his op-ed in early May, and more Vietnam vets flocked to the banner. Days before a June 1 press conference in D.C., a just released Vietnam veteran who had served in the same unit as Kerry, John O’Neill joined. Major media gave VVJP pretty straight and fair reporting. John Kerry and his band faded from view, and we all returned to building our lives.

Kesler’s graduate studies in organization and policy analysis at the University of Pennsylvania followed, also working as a researcher at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. His article against blanket amnesty for deserters and draft evaders, originally in Freedom House’s Freedom at Issue was picked up for most of a page in the Los Angeles Times, to Kesler’s amusement only half the space being given Jean Paul Sartre’s opposite view.

Kesler stayed out of politics during the next 30-years, except for helping organize a local Jewish Republican club during the mid-90’s. In 2004, Kesler, John O’Neill and other Vietnam veterans were again enraged by John Kerry’s false self-hagiography, and re-upped to finish the job of confronting John Kerry. Kesler published many articles during the campaign, recapping the effort in an op-ed in the San Diego Union-Tribune, “Revolt of the Vietnam Veterans,” a campaign credited with Kerry’s defeat. Kesler’s columns regularly appear in the Augusta Free Press and other venues, like at Front Page Magazine. Kesler lives in Encinitas, California with wife Judith, 5-year old Jason (a cross between laid back Dean Martin and rebellious Steve McQueen) and baby Gavin (so far like Jerry Lewis, howling or laughing).
——–

So he has all the cred of a a self-confessed swiftboater. If he had a first wife, there’s no kids or he’s alienated them. Possibly it took him 50-odd yrs to convince someone to marry him. His assets abound, he doesn’t state what his Social Security income is but shall we presume that’s exempt?

And, if he’s actually being truthful that he qualifies for SCHIP, we really do have a major loophole in the program because everyone knows how many bazillions of 62 year olds on SS there are that are raising children. I mean, they could break the Treasury!

On the other hand, since he includes his medical payments for this year, calculates SS for two years from now, projects his wife’s income at a very odd amount though she’s not working currently, it sounds like he’s created the most extreme fantasy scenario to demonstrate hoow SCHIP’s rules could be applied to sound as worst as worst gets.

Assuming he’s correct, it would suggest some program changes might make sense. However, since he owns an “employee benefits and individual’s planning consulting and brokerage firm” yet has no pension, and claims they “can’t afford baby-sitters in order to go out, so we don’t”, his business must be a doozy, and his capability to calculate compound interest is pretty suspect.

On top of that, he’s a total tightwad, ‘scrimping’ on everything for retirement, and he wonders why his kids act like McQueen, Martin and Lewis (one a drunken rebel, the other laughing at his Daddy).

I don’t know about you, but I’d say Graeme Frost gets 5-1 odds that he can kick Bruce’s Scrooge-y numbnut ass.

Ah yes, Michelle, keep touting your poster boys from Phi Gummy Wedgie!

His $80k is probably taxed at 15% (as most dividends and capital gains are). His wife makes less than 30k a year, so she is taxed at 15% as well (if they file separately).

What we most probably have here is a millionaire with a household family income of over $100,000 only paying 15% in income tax who collects early social security and its the Frosts who are abusing the system?

I think this is the Speaker of the House’s fault. I really feel for that family. In my mind this is where SCHIP really does it’s job – it targets people who are so close to the margin, nothing bad can happen or they’re doomed.

http://www.theskinofmyteeth.com

David B.

Rich, poor, middle class, it makes no difference–90% of what people have isn’t strictly necessary for sustaining life.

These lying sacks of shit never stop, do they?

“I’m just trying to understand this moment of nastiness,” Bonnie Frost said. “The nastiness caught me by surprise.”

Don’t let wingnut nastiness catch you by surprise. Read the Sadly, No! News.

Only if the struggling makes them angry enough to hate other people.

I disagree completely. The Overton window really only applies when there is a consensus that there should be some change and the debate is over how much. Take Iraq, for example. Calling for an invasion of Iran does not make staying in Iraq palatable, it makes all of the pro-war people seem less credible. However, calling for an immediate unilateral withdrawal allows Democrats to take the “moderate” route of drawing down troops in an orderly way over a period of months.

With health care the consensus is that something needs to be done. Large majorities agree that it is too expensive and too inaccessible, and even that they are willing to pay higher taxes to fix it. In that climate you don’t suggest massive cuts and get moderate cuts as a compromise. The “fringe” at this point is universal single-payer national care, and everthing else will be defined in relation to that.

The Democrats win here whether one looks at the specifics or just takes a cursory impression. The Dem’s proposal would expand coverage to families like the Frosts, who are already eligible in MD, but not in many other states. It does not cover families who are wealthier than they are, it equalizes coverage for families in states that have more stringent standards.

Most voters will not go into those particulars, but they will see Republicans arguing that lower-middle class families should shut up and give up their dreams so that they can afford to pay their children’s health care out of pocket. Everyone knows how expensive, complicated, and shoddy private health care is. Trivializing those cares as “laziness” or “selfishness” or “greed” will only bite the GOP in the ass.

Now the debate is reframed as, “Do you support the Democrats on S-CHIP” or, “Do you hate children and middle class families?”

Damned close to single payer as it turns out. I feel so guilty.

Sleazy, shallow, dimestore Republican cheeseballs.