SCHIP: The Clash With Reality

The Weekly Standard blog points out some research done by someone at Free Republic which shines the light of reality on the lib poster child for SCHIP.

We were told about a 12 year old boy who was hurt in a car accident and (violins, please) SCHIP made his recovery possible. But there's a little more to the story:

1. Graeme and his sister Gemma attend the Park School, a private school that costs $20,000 per child.

2. Brown wrote that the family lives on $45,000 per year, but icwhatudo notes: "Halsey Frost has owned his own company 'Frostworks' since...1992 so he chooses to not give himself insurance. He also employed his wife as 'bookkeeper and operations management' prior to her recent 2007 hire at the 'medical publishing firm.'"

3. His business is housed in a $160,000 building -- that he owns.

4. The Frost family lives in a recently remodeled 3,000-square-foot home that cost $485,000.


Yeah, the Frosts sound dirt poor, and certainly worthy of government handouts.

In reading this, I'm reminded of how "tough" the poor in America typically have it.

- Some 43 percent of all poor households actually own their own homes; the average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

- Some 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning; by contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

- Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded; two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.

- Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.

- Some 97 percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

-Some 78 percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

-Some 89 percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.

I've seen poverty--real poverty--in other countries, poverty caused by government corruption and the malaise of socialism, and typically the "poor" in America have it pretty good compared to the rest of the world's poor.

Is that the socialist requirement for needing help in America: not whether you're going to be destitute on the street, but if you can't maintain your standard of living without help from the government (be it a $485,000 house or whatever), the taxpayers must roll over and dispense coerced compassion?