October 15, 2007

12-Year Old in the SHCIP Crosshairs

Posted by Eric Hananoki at 12:00AM

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Even for the dirty politics of Washington, you'd have to see it to believe it. Conservative critics of SCHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, have attacked the program by going after one of its proponents and spokespersons, little 12-year old Graeme Frost. Graeme was injured with a brain stem injury after a car accident and is the beneficiary of the federal program that gives health insurance to kids. Yet conservatives, apparently unsatisfied to just focus on the program itself, have taken to attacking the child and his family.

Consider some of the attacks:

• Graeme's father is a wealthy business owner who chose not to insure his family.

• Graeme and his sister are privileged kids -- so privileged, in fact, that they attend private schools.

• The Frost family house is a high-value property in a upper middle-class neighborhood.

• The house is so cushy, in fact, that its kitchen has granite -- yes, granite -- counters.

The attacks, as reporters and fact-checkers soon unearthed, were wrong: Graeme's father made roughly $50,000 a year (not much for a family of six with previous medical bills), Graeme and his sister attended schools on scholarships, the Frost family house was purchased for just $55k in 1990, and no, the kitchen's counters are concrete, not granite.

Halsey Frost, Graem's father, justly put it this way in an email to Time Magazine:

"My son Graeme has helped put on a human face, that of a young boy, representing the needs of children and families across this nation. We are a hard working family that has stepped forward to support SCHIP. Mudslinging from the fringe has now been directed at the messenger. To be smeared all over the Internet and receive nasty e-mail — my family does not deserve this retribution. It is both shameful and pathetic."

And the mug-sligging against the Frost family -- a face on the ugly attack machine from the right.

Email Eric Hananoki here