I agree S-chip should be expanded but they should investigate better who they give it to. This is a perfect example of how people cheat the system. And Democrats want to socialize health care if we cant do it for children how are we going to do everyone else.

did you even bother to read ANY of the above?

Nice duplicitous lead. Why is the story not the republican smear campaign?

This is a lot closer to the truth:

The right-wing immediately condemned Democrats for daring to put a human face on the SCHIP program at a time when Bush was proposing a “diminishment of the number of children covered.” Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) — who has posed with children to advance his own political agenda — claimed Graeme was being used “as a human shield.”

Conservatives have more recently turned their targets on young Graeme Frost himself. ...

The smear attack against Graeme has taken firm hold in the right-wing blogosphere. The National Review, Michelle Malkin, Wizbang, Powerline, and the Weekly Standard blog have all launched assaults on the Frost family. The story is slowly working its way into traditional media outlets as well.

Here are the facts that the right-wing hasn’t bothered to figure out before attacking young Graeme:

1) Graeme has a scholarship to a private school. The school costs $15K a year, but the family only pays $500 a year.

2) His sister Gemma attends another private school to help her with the brain injuries that occurred do to her accident. The school costs $23,000 a year, but the state pays the entire cost.

3) They bought their “lavish house” sixteen years ago for $55,000 at a time when the neighborhood was less than safe.

4) Last year, the Frost’s made $45,000 combined. Over the past few years they have made no more than $50,000 combined.

5) The state of Maryland has found them eligible to participate in the CHIP program.

Desperate to defend Bush’s decision to cut off millions of children from health care, the right wing has stooped to launching baseless and uninformed attacks against a 12 year old child and his family.

Right wing bloggers have been harassing the Frosts, calling their home numerous times to get information about their private lives. Compassionate conservatism indeed.

Question - why did bush re-open Pandora’s Box? Answer; to let out more wing nuts.
This attack on children is unbelievable!
Thank goodness, there is a God; otherwise, these people would destroy what is left of human decency!

This is a NEW LOW for the toe tapping, morally bankrupt republicans!

go ahead and expand it.
let the 50 million or so people who vote democrat every year pay $150-200 each and they can pay for it all they want to.
or is it cause libs are to cheap with their own money and only like spending other peoples money?

The family qualified for aid under the law. If your child is hurt and you need help, and you qualify for some kind of assistance, you take it. It's that simple.

That's the end of the story.

The real story that's emerging now is that a 12-year-old child and his family are being attacked and harassed for speaking out on an issue of public policy.

If you really want to evaluate the utility and effectiveness of the CHIP program, you would examine the statistics gathered by the agencies that administer the program. If that was really your intent, you wouldn't pick a single family that had taken a public stance on the issue and form conclusions based solely on that family's circumstances.

You would do that, however, if you wanted to create a chilling atmosphere for dissent.

Why is the right-wing harassing a 12-year-old and his family?

I have mixed feelings about this one.

On the one hand, it's just disgusting that the Republican Party would stomp all over these people. What on earth would make them want to smear a kid like that? Graeme Frost isn't the sick one here, it's the Republican Party that's the sick one.

On the other hand, maybe it's a good thing when they let the mask slip from time to time, so everyone can see how hateful and selfish they really are.

We can dump pallets of money on Iraq, no questions asked, and argue about healthcare to kids? That's mighty Christian.

Didn't Jesus say, 'whatsoever you do the least of my brothers...'

The sickness that is modern conservatism turns my stomach

Bush and republicans can tell any d.... lie they wish, but you can not tell the truth about them if it hurts their agenda. Even our democrats (republicans) in office will support them.
You have to remember that Bush's supreme court voted that a person could lie about another's record or their own or anything they wish and it is a form of FREE SPEECH, but I wonder what will happen when it is someone like MoveOn.....
Look at the way they smeared MoveOn about their true statement and now Pelaeus is at the front using propaganda for Cheney & Bush's war in Iraq.
Petraeus says to prove him wrong in what he says about Iran revolutionary guards being involved in supplying Iraq with arms, when he even says he has no prove they they are. Everything he states about Iran is not facts but is HERE SAY.

"It appears that some folks feel that some victims should never be questioned, no matter their veracity."

Dude: The whole point is that this family's story is TRUE, yet wingnuts like Michelle Malkin still feel no qualms about harassing a 12-year-old boy and his family anyway. Go ahead and ask questions, but don't turn the whole thing into an ugly hatefest when you don't get the answers you want. I'd be so embarrassed to be a conservative these days! But then, I actually have a conscience.

And as for "trotting kids out to make political points," I seem to remember a fancy ceremony at the White House not too long ago featuring dozens of "snowflake babies."

"go ahead and expand it.
let the 50 million or so people who vote democrat every year pay $150-200 each and they can pay for it all they want to.
or is it cause libs are to cheap with their own money and only like spending other peoples money?"

These numbers are magical!

Have you ever considered the deleterious secondary effects that an uninsured populace has on a country? No you haven't because you're too busy parroting whatever radio talk show talking points memo you go in your inbox this morning.

You know why it won't cost everybody "150-200" dollars? Because unlike private insurance companies, public health insurance doesn't inflate their overhead costs. It's called a company based on the public interest NOT in the interest of filling the coffers of a bunch of executive MBAs who care more about their Cayman Islands accounts than the general well-being of the American people.

You wanna know how we can pay for S-CHIP? How about we start making the disgusting CEOs who last year successfully managed to hide an estimated $75 BILLION dollars in offshore accounts and tax shelters pay their share like they're supposed to. But no, instead we have to spend our days deliberating whether or not it's fair to harass a 12 year old boy and his family in a public smear campaign that is run by amateurs who are more interested in their argument than in the truth.

"GOP aides were complicit in spreading disparaging information about Frosts"?

Those same aides who are covered by the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program - whose premiums those aides pay out of the salaries the taxpayers provide?

And then they still got their facts wrong. Unintentionaly, or not.

Sweet. Hypocrisy rocks, doesn't it?

Have any of these right wingers priced an individual policy?

I am involved in my employer's purchase of group coverage. Family coverage is $1,000 per month and it is definitely not a "gold plated" plan. An individual policy would be substantially more. This, of course, assumes no pre-existing conditions and the usual private insurance caveats.

It is really pathetic to attack the messenger. This kid and his family are facing these bloggers who will do anything to stop anything they see as socialized medicine. This is an outrage! Maybe it is time that the people start investigating the rightwing bloggers. I am sure there are other Jeff Galooley types in there who have something to hide. Time to bring them down a peg or two. I am sure once someone actually starts calling their homes and harrasing them they might then know a taste of how it feels.

Huh. I wonder how the wingnuts would have responded if his sister had a feeding tube and was brain dead?

Silly wingers.

I think the boys' family should sue and file police complaints for harassment.

I can't believe how unbelievably ugly GOoPers are just under their flag decals and lapel pins.

"But Manley say conservative bloggers didn't dig deep enough. It turns out that the Frost children attend...on near-full scholarships..."

I got a chuckle out of that, seeing as how it suggests conservative bloggers even CARE what the truth is, and that they would stick to truths when presenting their arguments. Although not related to S-CHIP, the best example of this might be CNN correspondent Michael Ware's "outrageous heckling" of John McCain in Baghdad last April 1st. (Conservatives hate Ware because he won't regurgitate the White House line on Iraq as Fox News does.) Conservative bloggers, led by the Drudge Report, were universally outraged by Ware's supposed transgression. Only one problem: The videotape later released shows Ware DIDN'T UTTER A WORD DURING THE PRESS CONFERENCE, JUST AS HE SAID HE DIDN'T. And yet Drudge has yet to retract the lies he printed that day. Anyone who thinks conservative bloggers would have halted their attacks on the Frosts if they "had all the facts" is exceptionally naive. Just ask the Swift Boat Liars for Lies -- they'll happily confirm this.

One of the big details that dogmatic, simplistic right-wingers conveniently forget, ignore, or are too stupid to notice, is that many people do indeed purchase health insurance for themselves and their dependents, paying exorbitant premiums for decades....And they're still financially broken if they go to the doctor for a serious illness, much less overpriced prescriptions.

Public health insurance isn't about 'socialism,' or 'taking your money,' it's about bulk-purchase rates, economies of scale, reducing grotesquely fraudulent billings, and eliminating multiple layers of useless middleman gougers in the health care business.

That's just sound economics, not socialism.

"...or is it cause libs are to cheap with their own money and only like spending other peoples money?"

We're not actually, but you Republicans sure are.

Year after year, us bluestaters pay more in taxes than we get back, while you redstaters feed off the treasury.

Here in California, I get about 70 cents for every dollar that I send to the federal treasury. Likewise, Connecticut, Maryland (where the Frost family lives), New Jersey, Mass, NY, etcetera.

For once we'd (liberal Democrats to liberal Republicans) like to spend our money as we see fit, not to support the idiot rednecks. Our kids will turn to SCHIP.