Mr Frost works "intermittently"

This has been an interesting debate. But the debate appears to be mainly on one side. The Right/Conservative/Moderate side debates the merits of socialized medicine. The Left screams and lies.

Mark Steyn:

Both The Baltimore Sun and The New York Times have stories on the Frosts this morning, and the interesting point is the matter of whether they do, in any useful sense, represent the "working poor":

Mr. Frost works intermittently in woodworking and as a welder, while Mrs. Frost has a part-time job at a firm that provides services to publishers of medical journals.

Mr Frost works "intermittently". The unemployment rate in the Baltimore metropolitan area is four-percent. Perhaps he chooses to work "intermittently," just as he chooses to send his children to private school, and chooses to live in a 3,000-square-foot home. That's what free-born citizens in democratic societies do: choose. Sometimes those choices work out, and sometimes they don't. And, when they don't and catastrophe ensues, it's appropriate that the state should provide a safety net. But it should be a safety net of last resort, and it's far from clear that it is in this case.

Some of us have asked what Mr. Frost's parents and grandparent have done to help him. Of course the thought of members of a family helping out their kin has become slightly ridiculous in modern American when the government has replaced the black father in female headed households. It appears that well-to-do parents have turned their children who are looking to "find themselves" in their mid-forties over to the tender mercies of the State welfare system. Rugged individualism is as ridiculous as patriotism in this part of the population.


We are at the stage of determining whether our medical system will consist of individuals choosing their own doctors and making our own arrangement on how we will pay for our medical care, or whether we have the government make those decisions for us, and pay for our medical care through higher taxes.

Many other countries have had this debate and a number have chosen the socialistic course. The Left appears not to want to debate the merits, but is doing what it does best, shout down the opposition and threaten violence.

UPDATE: Bruce Kesler find out he qualifies for SCHIP. Click here.

Thus, even though having substantial liquid assets, saved through a lifetime of scrimping in order to fund retirement, I would qualify for California’s Healthy Families SCHIP program. Assets and unearned income (e.g., Social Security, capital gains, ordinary dividends) do not count against SCHIP qualification.

We live in one of the highest cost areas of the U.S., San Diego, owning a modest house in a middle-class neighborhood, with substantial equity. We drive two old, almost 100,000-mile cars, paid off. We can’t afford baby-sitters in order to go out, so we don’t, and we eat out once a week at a fast-food restaurant. Pasta is a staple on our table. We don’t have a cell phone or broadband, saving about $100 a month on those common conveniences. We do not have pensions.

This is a real question: should we buy Bruce Kesler's health insurance? Is that our moral obligation? If so, what would it cost us?