Oh Noes! Don’t throw mees in the briar patch!

He found he could qualify by giving false information! What a horrible blow this is for SCHIP champions!

I agree that income from capital gains and dividends should be treated the same as earned income, though; for SCHIP as well as for income taxes.

Gah. I hope those kids aren’t eating from JitB and McD’s particularly often, because I think medical insurance is only going to become more and more expensive for people with “pre-existing conditions”.

house-mom

Thanks, Gavin, I can always use more grist for my mill, and I just can’t stand to go looking for it these days. This whole Frost situation has just drained every drop of my energy and good will.

The way I’ve always put it is that while the right might generously grant you the right to live, the left wants you to have a life, too. The capitalist life is tawdry excess on a backdrop of raw and animalistic subsistence — which, you’ll notice, is the situation behind the cruel right-wing taunt of ‘welfare queen’. It’s cheaper — and more immediately satisfying — to buy a six-pack of beer and cable TV than it is to educate yourself and pursue ‘productive’ hobbies. Why would it be surprising to anyone that when your head is just above the water, you’re going to try and get as much air into your lungs as possible?

A government program might BENEFIT THE CITIZENRY?! AIYEEEEEE!!!!

Yeah, I’m completely unsure why, given the information above, these people don’t use the resource of SCHIP that’s available to them. Does Jesus love them more if they have to struggle?

Another thought: the primary element of American welfare capitalism is shame. When it’s already shameful to be receiving the pittance that you’re being so generously granted, it becomes a lot easier to spend those ill-gotten gains on a pack of Budweiser *now* instead of spending it some years later on a set of night classes.

This isn’t how human beings should live. It’s dull and grey and suffocating and it’s exactly how anal-retentive Puritans like Malkin want it.

Yes. The money that would go to helping Americans live better lives should (continue to) be funneled into a project that Incompetent Big Government is much better suited for: Establishing a democratic paradise all across the Middle East.

(Although, I understand the goalposts have been moved since the fall of 2001. But I haven’t picked up the latest edition of the Big Golden Book of Republican Talking Points, updated for the SCHIP veto. (I bought Colbert’s book instead. He speaks for ME!))

What you’re seeing is the mindset of a person who does not have to worry about money. They just don’t know the stresses that huge quantities of cash don’t bring.

Bruce Kesler may be a broke dick, but I bet he can call Daddy when he needs a hand (or when his kid has a brain injury). Since he can, you can. Get it? Even though my Daddy’s dead and if I don’t have enough money I’ll be on the fucking street, that’s ok; because that won’t happen to Bruce Kesler – the center of the known universe.

Understand that these people will never understand anyone else’s situation. They don’t even understand their own.

Not only are they too proud and self-reliant to take SCHIP, they’re too stupid to understand what it is or how it works. If Joe UberAmerican thinks that putting a 2- and 7-year old on SCHIP will make Mom and Dad’s insurance costs go away, saving them $10K/yr., he needs some remedial math. I don’t know where the rightwingers get their stupid, but damn it’s a fine source.

Your two jalopies have almost 100,000 miles on them? My wife and I each have a car. They’ve got over 200,000 miles on them, each.

We have dial-up intertoobs, and we rent a little place that’s about to fall down itself.

I’ve got minimum health insurance, and my wife has none.

So stop yer whining! We have economized in our lifestyles, in order to be able to not afford health insurance at all. With a little more work, I’m sure you could be able to afford to be uncovered, yourselves. You just have to push it to the limit!

Geez, Gavin. How is he going to keep his kids properly emotionally stunted if he doesn’t deny them lots of stuff?
Btw, a 62 year old with a 2 year old and 7 year old by a 41 year old? Do I smell second marriage?
Bzzzzt, disqualified.

Establishing a democratic paradise all across the Middle East.

(Although, I understand the goalposts have been moved since the fall of 2001.

Yeah, I think the last time I checked the benchmark for success was “less than 50% of Iraq physically on fire at any given moment.” Though some info leaked out of Iraq suggests that they may not be able to meet it. I think we’ll ultimately settle somewhere around “some multicellular life still able to live in Iraq.” To dream the impossible dream!

You elitist liberals!

You think that just because people go on and on about stuff they don’t know anything about, it means they’re stupid!

Liberals. Hmf.

Wait a minute. This person is making $30,000 a year in ordinary dividends?? Aren’t dividends generally paid out at a rate of about 3% to 5% annually? That would mean this person has roughly $600,000 to $1,000,000 in investments.

And he can’t afford a cellphone?

Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.

Yeah! Why doesn’t the Liberal Media(TM) report the good news! Last I heard, there were people still alive in Iraq.

But the Liberal Media(TM) won’t tell you that!

Makes you think … what is the Liberal Media(TM) trying to hide?

Can’t answer that, can ya?

Liberals. Hmf.

Whoa there. $80K in investments plus a modest house and two old-ass cars qualify as “substantial liquid assets”? In San Fucking Diego? On one income of less than $3K a month?

That’s one bad diagnosis and/or a layoff away from landing in a cardboard box by Easter.

The whole right these days are just like the storied lass to whom toasts were raised in every bar across the Argentine:

She’s got them all in a whirl, but she’s only fooling one girl–
She’s only fooling Tangerine.

Some people say that it’s not really Michelle who wrote the posts on her blog about health care. So unless Ezra wants a debate on why stalking 12-year-olds is okey-dokey, he might want to challenge Jesse instead.

The fact is, I would never accept SCHIP as I have substantial liquid assets in the form of a pup tent, a ratty GI Joe sleeping bag and the June 1993 issue of Hustler at the migrant camp. Liberals just want to blah blah nanny state etc.

collecting early Social Security

Fucking mooch!

I thought the point of the story of the Frosts was that their children were in a car accident that was severe enough to leave both of them with permanent (although different levels of) brain injuries. That kind of hospitalization and surgery can max out a lot of insurance programs’ catastrophic coverage pretty fast just with the initial treatment, never mind the continuing care.

It’s not like they were using S-CHIP for colds and sniffles. I wonder if this bozo has already been in some accident where head trauma was involved?

I wonder if this bozo has already been in some accident where head trauma was involved?

One can only speculate…

We certainly are in the age of lowered political expectations!

Ninety-some-odd years ago, women were marching, marching in Lawrence, Massachusetts, singing “Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too.”

Now we have to fight to justify the contention that people shouldn’t have to choose between food and access to healthcare?

So much for progress!

What a tempest in a teapot. Everyone knows Iraq’s oil revenues will be more than enough to cover the expanded S-CHIP program. Calm down,everyone.

Um, dood? SCHIP covers the kiddies. Not you and the little woman. So don’t go all crazy getting that 29 dollar DSL account just yet, ok?

Goddam it, government’s job is to tax the population, incarcerate them, punish them, spy on them, control their lives as much as possible and whenever the opportunity arises, execute them.

Where did you liberals get the idea that it was government’s job in a democracy to help the people?

Sheesh…

mikey

Michelle, today, on the subject of health care:

We make choices, in favor of frugality and self-responsibility, and can thus afford to continue to pay insurance premiums.

Michelle, 3 years ago, when it came time to decide on her OWN health care

:After my husband quit his job earlier this year (to become a full-time stay-at-home dad), we had a choice. We could either buy health insurance from his former employer through a program called COBRA at a cost of more than $1,000 per month(!) or we could go it alone in Maryland’s individual market. Given our financial circumstances, that “choice” wasn’t much of a choice at all.

Emphasis mine.

So you started out with a debate about whether to extend an existing state-paid health-insurance scheme, with questions like Why is Bush vetoing the extension?

Now this has been displaced — at least in the eyes of the media — by a debate about “Existing state-paid health-insurance scheme — keep it, or dump it?” If the whole saga ends with minor cut-backs in the scheme, strict means-testing and all that, pundits will be able to collectively rejoice in the triumph of moderation.

So what is this “Overton Window” of which you speak?

The funny thing is, two weeks ago they would gladly have taken SCHIP benefits, but now that they’ve taken sides on this dumb team competition, wouldn’t touch those benefits if their lives depended on it. 20 years from now if their grandchild needs it, these idiots will allow the health of their kids to suffer just because way back in Ought Seven Grandpa sided with Malkin.

It’s like people who still boycott French’s mustard due to the anti-France thing.

Oh, Kman, bless you! I was very reluctant to trawl through Malkin’s oeuvre to find her earlier words on health insurance, but this is priceless:

We discovered that the most generous plans in Maryland’s individual market cost $700 per month yet provide no more than $1,500 per year of prescription drug coverage–a drop in the bucket if someone in our family were to be diagnosed with a serious illness.

With health insurance choices like that, no wonder so many people opt to go uninsured. – Michelle Malkin • August 27, 2004

Heh heh heh…

Ex-CUSE me:

“collecting early Social Security”

At age 60? Which, as everyone knows, is the new 50?

So: sitting around on your duff, loafing, while driving two (2) death traps and imperiling the kids further with fast food?

And what can this:

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

–possibly mean? Wife works at job (for $471/week) without medical benefits while simultaneously not working, being a house-mom?

Plus $80,000/yr. unearned income? AND Social Security? And wife’s 27,468 a year, which she doesn’t earn because she’s not working?

This is a responsible Republican? No. This is a schizophrenic who can’t get his story straight.

game, set, match.

What’s consistent across the board with Republicans is they embrace a have-not culture. No one must have anything unless they “work for it” (or sell everything they own lock, stock, and barrel first). Their role model examples: wealthy entrepreneurs who feed off the tit of the military-industrial complex, the Preznident who has never done an honest day’s work in his life and will never need to either, and themselves!!OMGrealradioteeveepundits!

Sleazy, shallow, dimestore Republican cheeseballs.

Its like an ad for universal health care, I thought he was gonna end with “Socialized medicine is the shit!”

I feel so guilty about having managed to join my state’s group insurance program for small businesses. I should resign from it (along with my co-worker) and instead of paying the $200/month premium for a straightforward, old fashion 80/20 policy with pharmacy benefits go to Blue Cross where, for $850/month I can receive …. um pretty much nothing. No pharmacy benefit for a year. No insurance at all for anything considered pre-existing, like the pesky chronic illness thingey I have, for a year – or maybe two. It’s just not right to actually participate in these State funded dealies – which in truth are not State funded at all, but are rather exactly the same thing as an ‘SBA loan’ – guaranteed by the State in the event of default. My health insurance is $200/month because it is a -group-rated- policy and the State mandates that it is a -group-.

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

[…] Original post by Sadly, No! […]

Now this has been displaced — at least in the eyes of the media — by a debate about “Existing state-paid health-insurance scheme — keep it, or dump it?” If the whole saga ends with minor cut-backs in the scheme, strict means-testing and all that, pundits will be able to collectively rejoice in the triumph of moderation.

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?”

Vicious, ignorant, and lazy – the wingnuts are really in form here. S-CHIP is going to be the gift that keeps on giving for the immediate future.

Does Jesus love them more if they have to struggle?

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

I just hope the little Malkintent kiddies (“ages 2 and 7”) weren’t born with any genetic problems as a result of the geriatic reproductive cells of their lazy, Social-Security-sucking sire and his much-younger-but-still-past-prime (mailorder? green card?) bride. It’s gonna be hard enough on those poor tots, growing up trapped in some backwoods shack with a “daddy” old enough to be their grandfather and a “house mom” who couldn’t make better choices for herself than marrying him, living on a steady diet of the lowest-quality fast food and radio/internet hate media…

From the Baltimore Sun article:

“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.

Guy’s lying. First, unearned income counts. Second, Healthy Families only covers the kids. Third, there would be a waiting period of 3 months if they dropped their present coverage. Fourth, Healthy Families isn’t free: there is a monthly premium involved and copays.

These lying sacks of shit never stop, do they?

Guy just needs to sit down and reread what he wrote a couple times over. A little later I’ll be by with the change-of-party forms.

Who are these assholes kidding about lifestyle choices? When I was at my very poorest (and that was pretty poor) I still bought beer, rented movies, had cable TV, and would have had an internet connection too, if there’d been an internet to connect to. Pretty much everyone I’ve ever known who wasn’t living on the streets has been the same damn way–even when it’s a struggle to get by, we always find ways to make life bearable, and dare I say, enjoyable.

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

For me the problem here has been that Pelosi’s staff should have sketched out a well-thought out scenario of what this family’s life would have been without SCHIP. They’d be bankrupt from paying off the medical bills, out of their home, and, statistically, likely considering divorce.

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.

Also worth noting. The guy is probably a millionaire, and at the very least has 500,000 in the bank. If you can get me consitently get $80,000 a year with less, PLEASE email me.

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?

From Michelle’s link, here’s the bio for Mr. Frugal in San Diego (bolding by me for the irony deluxe parts):

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!

This scenario is pretty thin, based purely on the fact that it is written in some strange form of double-first-person:
“Husband, age 62 (which I’ll be in 2-years),” means that this list is written by the wife, who is 60… But what do we find at the bottom?
“Earned income of $2289 a month by wife at job without medical benefits. (My wife is not currently working, being a house-mom.)” Presumably this isn’t a marriage between two women, one of whom refers to the other as both her wife and husband?!
Also, neither of them have any job whatsoever… How is that responsible? The dude retired early and the wife is a house frau? I dont get it…

I’d say there’s something of a Freudian slip in his bio:

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?

Who are these assholes kidding about lifestyle choices? When I was at my very poorest (and that was pretty poor) I still bought beer, rented movies, had cable TV, and would have had an internet connection too, if there’d been an internet to connect to.

damn liberal, spending money to enjoy yourself…..

“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.”