Uniquely Human

What Bas-O-Matic said in the comments down there:

Let me get this straight.  This guy's a cabinet maker, and these geniuses are leering about how nice his cabinets are?

Given that those people basically live in downtown Baltimore, I'd be willing to bet that they bought a a rundown house in a gentrifying neighborhood on the cheap so that Mr. Frost, who is good with his hands, can fix the place up and they can turn the house around for a profit. His business, which is a couple of blocks away in downtown Baltimore, basically comes from all the people fixing up all the old brownstones in the area.

In the meantime, he has to send his kids to school and the public schools in Baltimore don't really seem like the ideal option. So he looks around, and finds that he can send them to a private school using their assistance program.

But given that $45000 dollars, while a decent living all things considered, isn't a whole hell of a lot of money, especially when there are six mouths to feed, after everything's said and done with he just can't make things work with health insurance (when it comes down to it, after the mortgage, food, clothes and all the rest of the expenses of raising a family, even another $600 is no small potatos).

Then the children get into a catasrophic accident, the family is suddenly looking at medical bills it can't pay. They are in such bad straits that the school is doing fundraisers for them. This government program helps them; makes their lives better in a fundamental way.

And these jokers are pissed off about it.

Amazing.

I meant to say that. Exactly right.

Comments

[va]

What kind of political movement do you have when a 12 year old and a car accident sends it into a spasmodic, apopleptic frenzy? If I didn't know better, I'd say this freak-out looks like death throes.

[Thers]

This guy's a cabinet maker, and these geniuses are leering about how nice his cabinets are?

A detail, but my God! So right.

He's a local businessman. He can make your home look good! If his home looks like shit...

I don't go to barbers who have shitty haircuts. This guy needs a nice kitchen.

I bet he polished the shit out of that countertop for the picture in the paper. And the wingnuts are giving him crap!

God they hate people who try to start businesses.

[MikeJ]

This kid's dad is a carpenter. If his mom is a virgin as she should be, the kid can just heal himself. < /deranged>

[P O'Neill]

[Chimpy] Can't they just do a few speeches to replenish the ol' coffers? [/Chimpy]

[John Moltz]

Socialism! Communism! Attack! Attack! Attack! Who cares if it was a kid in a coma?! Maybe someone should start following the kids around at school. Email Malkin. She can put their phone numbers, email addresses, IM addresses and the school bus schedule up on her web site.

[Amy Alkon]

If you can't afford to support four children, including paying for health care for them, you should have two or one. I don't own a building (or buildings) or have children I send to a tony private school (a neeeeeed?). I do pay for Kaiser HMO every month, and have for about 20 years, so if I get sick, my treatment doesn't come out of the pockets of others. If you think it's okay to fund others' lives, come over to advicegoddess.com and put $500 in my tip jar. Thanks.

[mmmm - sultry]

Amy Alkon ... "I do pay for Kaiser HMO every month, and have for about 20 years, so if I get sick, my treatment doesn't come out of the pockets of others."

ummm ... do you have any idea how insurance works??? whilst you've been paying your premiums, YOU have been paying for OTHER PEOPLE'S health care ... not only people in Kaiser care, but also uninsured people who go to the hospital.

criminey, you numpties REALLY don't understand how things work, do you???

[RP]

It's also ironic (although not at all surprising) that, by focusing on the family's supposed "wealth," these a**holes are actually highlighting one of the most important aspects of this issue: that health care in this country is so expensive and such a mess that even a family with an ok income and some assets is totally screwed if someone gets sick or injured in an accident.

[Amy Alkon]

I CHOOSE to be in an HMO -- it's a program that spreads cost around. If something happens to me, because I have my health care covered (and did, even when I couldn't afford a bed), you don't have to pay for me.

Sound it out: "Per-son-al Re-spon-si-bil-i-tee."

Here's the right idea, from one of my commenters:

one of the things that keeps me shackled to a 9-5 job with a "real company" is precisely the health care that I am legally required (and want) to provide to my kids.

I'm sure he, too, would rather be a self-employed woodcarver. Entrepreneurial risk is for those who don't have mouths to feed. Or the unethical.

And hey, be sure to throw me some of your hard-earned cash.

I understand all-too-well how things work. Mooches risk their kids' health and then stick their hands out when their gamble doesn't work out so well.

[Queen Liz]

What if the countertop is not granite. Does that change everything?

It looks more like fake corian like I have. Its still pretty nice but it isn't granite.

[Thers]

one of the things that keeps me shackled to a 9-5 job

Good one. You're in favor of a system that keeps you in shackles and discourages ordinary people from becoming entrepreneurs.

Commie.

[Jay Andrew Allen]

If you can't afford to support four children, including paying for health care for them, you should have two or one.

Ayup. EXACTLY right. And if you COULD support four children because you had a job with good health insurance, and then got laid off and could no longer find a job that offered affordable care, you should...should...

Help me out here, people.

Oh, and for the record, most insurance plans that I've been a part of charge a flat rate for child dependent support. Two vs. four kids doesn't make a damn bit of difference on your premiums. If you can't afford two, you can't afford four.

But wait, Amy...

perhaps you're correct that his "gamble" under the current system didn't work out so well.

but isn't that a reason to want to change that very system?

from what I can understand, you're saying that it's a good thing that people are scared shitless of starting their own businesses. the old "its a feature not a bug" thing. you're basically arguing that we should all be really glad that the current health care system greatly discourages entrepreneurialism.

by the way, national healthcare would work just the same way as your HMO, except people wouldn't have to squelch their entrepreneurial spirit in order to utilize it.

[Avedon]

Am I more moral than Amy because I have no children and pay into a better health insurance plan than hers? (It's called the NHS.)

[Not an asshole like Amy]

"self-employed woodcarver"

By any chance, can you read?

"Entrepreneurial risk is for those who don't have mouths to feed."

Who says? You? Kind of the totalitarian type, aren't you?

[Tyro]

The problem is that this guy makes the conservative case for universal health insurance. People could be more entrepeneurial and we could create more small businesses.

This is where the conservative rhetoric about free entreprise runs up against the conservative culture of control and dominance. Ultimately, conservatives believe that health insurance costs (which have become quite crippling) should serve as a means of social control over the population. When someone in the middle classes, freed from those constraints, achieves greater freedom (though not wealth), conservatives see this as "cheating" and morally pernicious.

[Tom - Daai Tou Laam]

If you can't afford to support four children, including paying for health care for them, you should have two or one.

If the guys was a raving xenophobe, the wingnuts would be praising his ass for trying to outbreed the brown people who are taking over Merica? Right????

[SteveB]

by focusing on the family's supposed "wealth," these a**holes are actually highlighting one of the most important aspects of this issue: that health care in this country is so expensive and such a mess that even a family with an ok income and some assets is totally screwed if someone gets sick or injured in an accident.

Exactly, RP. Our wingnutty friends would prefer that we make the case for national health care by using, as our examples, people living in abject poverty. Then they can reassure the great American middle class that this isn't a problem to worry about.

They're not outraged that this guy has granite countertops. They're scared that other folks, who also have nice granite countertops, might begin to understand that they're next in line to get fucked over by our fucked-up health care system.

P.S. people on this blog haven't been saying "fuck" enough lately, so I'm doing what I can to meet the quota. No need to thank me; it's all in a day's work.

[mmmm - sultry]

"Am I more moral than Amy because I have no children and pay into a better health insurance plan than hers? (It's called the NHS.)"

I do, too ... and, speaking as an ex-pat, I laugh everytime I hear the GOP raise the spectre of "socialized health care" ...

ummm ... so, let's see ... my prescription, which costs $20 in the US (with insurance) costs £10 here on NHS. If I or my hubster lose our jobs (evidently on Planet Amy, no one's job is ever outsourced/offshored), we're still covered by healthcare. If I or my hubster happen to be diagnosed with cancer, we'll never be refused coverage. If we wanted to start our own business, we could without worrying about our healthcare.

That's just the tip of the benefits ... there's home health visits ... there's same-day visits at the doctor ... there are excellent specialist facilities in addition to great GPs

[MeLoseBrain?]

I CHOOSE to be in an HMO -- it's a program that spreads cost around.

Umm, Amy, dear, isn't that what a universal healthcare system would do? Instead of paying premiums to an HMO, you pay it to the government. The difference, Amy, dear? You don't lose your insurance (or your premium level) when you lose your job. You don't lose your insurance when you decide to strike it out on your own, and create your own business doing something you love.

Look under the covers, Amy, dear, it's really not as bad as you think.

[mmmm - sultry]

"If the guys was a raving xenophobe, the wingnuts would be praising his ass for trying to outbreed the brown people who are taking over Merica? Right????"

hahaha ... I would LOVE to know how the Duggar family manages to cover their 17+ kids ... heck, I'd love to know how they can afford MMe Duggar's hospital care every 15 months ...

[Jim Pharo]

I guess Amy has HAD the money to pay into her HMO for $20 years. Well done, Amy!

While there are surely people who abuse the system, in my experience the people I know without health coverage gave it up so they could pay for food and rent. And if they could afford food, rent AND health care coverage would happily do so.

Does Amy know what health insurance costs for a family of four (besides the same as for a family of six)? The answer in my community is over $13,000 after-tax dollars a year. If you can cover rent, food and $13 grand, either you have nothing left, or you're making over $85k a year.

Why don't people like Amy WANT to help those who need it? Is preaching per-son-ab-le res-pon-si-bility the ONLY way she knows to help others? Sure, it's a good lesson, but there are other lessons, no?

[mmmm - sultry]

"Umm, Amy, dear, isn't that what a universal healthcare system would do? Instead of paying premiums to an HMO, you pay it to the government."

and, just to expand on MeLoseBrain's point ... by paying into the gov't, your $$ goes further because there is less administrative cost on nationalized health care.

[Ripley]

Amy: I do pay for Kaiser HMO every month, and have for about 20 years

How much of the real premium do you pay? If employees had to pay 100% of the premium, I'd guess many of them wouldn't have health insurance. Ask anyone who's lost a job about the sticker shock they felt when they rec'd their COBRA notice.

As far as 'personal responsibility' goes, insurance, private or otherwise, is the antithesis of personal responsibility and, frankly, about as close to pure Socialism as you can get in America. I'd think someone with 20 years experience as an insurance customer would know that. "If I get sick my treatment doesn't come out of the pockets of others"? You don't seem to have the slightest grasp on insurance or the insurance industry. Maybe you should re-think giving advice to people, Amy.

Of course all the silly arguments about how many kids you can have are retarded on the face of it.

It only takes one self-sufficient, financially responsible person to have an accident to show how weak and retarded this argument is.

If the health care system doesn't save families from ruin when someone gets sick, then it's broken.

Honestly, the "modern conservative" is more like a heartless freak out of a Dickens novel... Beware the ghost of Christmas past, assholes. Everything is easy to mock when your entire life is cocooned in a trust fund.

Hey, don't like being poor? Next time, don't be born to parents without money!

[Jeff R.]

I don't go to barbers who have shitty haircuts.

There's the old logic problem of the town with two barbers. Which one would you have cut your hair? The barber with the good haircut or the one with the bad haircut?

More on topic: aren't building trades like cabinet making, pretty variable? Wouldn't he have relatively high income years and low income years (or even good and bad months)?

[nate]

I was going to write to Amy, along the same lines as some other comments, that if she truly wanted to take Personal Responsibility (the absolute good) for her medical costs, she would be funding her own private account, like a mutual fund or trust, that she could use in case of a catastrophic event and would simply be paying for medical services out of her current income. By utilizing the insurance company, she has taken Personal Responsibility (the absolute good) in finding an insurance company, but she has not taken Personal Responsibility (the absolute good) for her actual medical costs. She has taken a gamble that she will be utilizing more medical services than others and will be getting more medical services than she currently pays for through her premium. She has essentially taken Personal Responsibility (the absolute good) to try to shift her medical costs onto others.

Congratulations! and Long Live the Free Market!

[Dr. Wu]

Ayup. EXACTLY right. And if you COULD support four children because you had a job with good health insurance, and then got laid off and could no longer find a job that offered affordable care, you should...should...

Help me out here, people.

...kill off the extra kids. If the mother was stupid enough to fuck someone who wasn't a white Christian millionaire, the kids deserve what's coming to them. Remember, "every baby (sic) is a blessing" until it's born; after that the wingnuts don't give a shit.

[Amy Alkon]

perhaps you're correct that his "gamble" under the current system didn't work out so well.

His gamble wasn't under the current system but that his children wouldn't need medical care and he could spend his money on other things. The height of irresponsible parenting.

Nate, castastrophic care is factored into my premium. I pay for more than I actually use (I take good care of myself) in case I'll ever need catastrophic care. And you might inquire as to whether I have plans set up for disaster before you assume I don't.

Starbucks offers medical care to employees who work more than 20 hours a week.

[Bas-O-Matic]

Hey! I got a link from Atrios and I don't even have a blog!

Eat that NTodd!

[fp]

I'm sure he, too, would rather be a self-employed woodcarver. Entrepreneurial risk is for those who don't have mouths to feed. Or the unethical.

Remind me again why the Republican party is considered pro-small-business, pro-growth...

[Amy Alkon]

PS I'm all for funding the truly hard-scrabble poor, but sorry, people who own two buildings and send their children to the Baltimore equivalent of Crossroads School aren't them.

PPS I actually have a program I'm starting to help inner city kids. I should be doing the first session within the next two weeks. What are all of you doing to help poor children (when you aren't huffing and puffing on behalf of the enviably comfortable)?

[Tyro]

Amy, the destitute are covered by medicaid. Meanwhile, 1 million children who used to have health coverage lost it. 1 million. Why? Because it costs $2000/month to cover a family of 4. SCHIP was implemented to pick up those lost kids.

Also, it is clear you have no idea how insurance works, so quit while you're ahead.

[Thers]

I'm all for funding the truly hard-scrabble poor, but sorry, people who own two buildings and send their children to the Baltimore equivalent of Crossroads School aren't them.

I'm for healthcare as a basic right. You're for a system that imposes "shackles" on Americans. SCHIP made a hardworking family's life better at no especially burdensome cost to taxpayers. Why do you hate the middle class?

What are all of you doing to help poor children

Advocating for a rational healthcare system so that the poor don't have to accept charity from condescending, clueless maniacs like yourself.

[Karen]

I wonder how the Frosts were chosen to give the Democratic response because they are a really bad choice. My niece and her husband had their 2 kids on an SCHIP program for a while and it was a great help to them. No big sob story about a tragic accident but a better example of the reality of the program: a struggling young family able to have the peace of mind that they have health insurance for their children.

The Frosts are an illustration of what taxpayers are wary of in this kind of program: self employed people who can manipulate their income so that they get something at the expense of the people who "play by the rules," i.e., every dollar they earn is reported to the IRS.

How much does Mr. Frost work? Is he a very incompetent cabinet maker? Because I happen to know a man who is a custom cabinet maker, immigrated here from Ireland 20 years or so ago, lives in upstate NY but goes to jobsites in NYC and Washington DC, etc. to install his cabinets --- and he is LOADED. He must be around Mr. Frost's age.

[Thers]

Karen, that's slanderous. You're accusing someone of multiple felonies based upon absolutely nothing.

Nice to see that you approve of the program for you and yours, though. Thanks for being completely typical of your species.

[pseudonymous in nc]

And these jokers are pissed off about it.

You have to understand the politics of ressentiment.

During the times the wingnuts have no need of such things, they castigate the liberals/scroungers/darkies who are spending money that could be put to better use, such as funding three minutes of the war in Iraq.

During the times they do, all of the liberals/scroungers/darkies have got there first to cream off the benefits.

Thus, Karen. It's an irregular verb:

My needs are deserving, and unmet because of all Those People;
Your needs are met in a waste of public money'
Their needs are met through felonious actions.

[pseudonymous in nc]

Entrepreneurial risk is for those who don't have mouths to feed. Or the unethical.

Or, y'know, for people who live in countries with a sane attitude to healthcare, such as Horrid Socialist France, where M. Boeuf le Boucher, an enterprising sole proprietor, doesn't have to worry about his shop going out of business if he accidentally cuts off his thumb with a cleaver.

Can't these numbnuts get their ideological talking points in order?

[Karen]

Supposedly the family income is $45,000. Take, say, $10,000 as the wife's income and that leaves a custom cabinet maker making only $45,000 before taxes? You could be a cabinet installer for, say, Home Depot and make a lot more than that. I had Kraftmaid kitchen cabinets installed for $4,500 (does not include price of cabinets) and it took 2 men 3 days. Thats $750 per person per day.

[Karen]

Ooops. should be that Mr. Frost might make $35,000 after taking a possible $10,000 off for his wife's earnings.

[Apprentice to Darth Holden]

Obviously, this guy "gambled" without a trust fund to bail him out if he happened to lose.

Or, he didn't have a lobbying firm working 24/7 to make sure that he wasn't actually gambling at all, he had a sure thing subsidized by the wretched masses through their taxes.

That's the way to be an entrepreneur in this country!

"You're obviously not wealthy anough to compell others through state power to absorb the risk for you. Next!"

[annoyingCrazyPerson]

Amy - I USED to have KP HMO. Even while self-employed. Very reasonable rates and wonderful service! I loved them. Then, guess what: they left NC. And I had to scramble to find crappy insurance at a (relatively) low rate. Now, I pay over $500/month for a 10K deductible. Great, huh? What are you going to do if KP leaves you? They aren't obligated to stay if their profit margins get too low in your area. Plus, once you get out of KP's system, you see the for-profit system up close and personal. Rule 1: They don't like "Per-son-al Re-spon-si-bil-i-tee." That just makes you question all the tests they want to do and the prescriptions they want to write. My current doc wanted to medicate me for migraines that only occur every 3-5 years and he is far, far better than the previous doc I saw. And every time you change to try to find a sane one, you get to pay the "new patient visit" fee - which is quite a bit higher. Just hope KP does not leave.

[Tyro]

Thats $750 per person per day

When I worked in consulting, I was billed out by my company at $1000/day to clients. I was compensated at about $200/day.

There are things such as overhead (incl. rent, health insurance, HR salaries, etc.), not to mention profit to the owners that means that the price you pay is much higher than the price the employer actually gets. What Mr. Frost was doing was cutting out the middle man and allowing you to pay less money for your kitchen cabinets than you would have if you went to Home Depot. Plus, he gets to live as an entrepeneur rather than an employee. SCHIP created an environment where a person could do that and make a modest salary (who knew 45k/yr made you wealthy?) without having to worry about the crippling costs of health insurance. More to the point, SCHIP was created because self-employed people making a modest salary were no longer able to afford health insurance. Fixing that was a good thing.

[Thers]

Karen, nobody gives a rat's ass about your cabinets, you absurd person.

[Tyro]

Uh, obviously I meant to say:

the price you pay is much higher than the price the employee actually gets.

[Tyro]

Someone once mentioned that after listening to a bunch of Ayn Randroids wax poetic about the wonder of deregulation and the flowering of the heroic entrepeneurialism it would provide, he asked them what they did for a living. They were overwhelmingly middle managers at government contracting firms (Ayn Rand having much appeal to young engineers).

We're seeing a manifestation of that similar phenomenon-- right-wingers might talk a good game about small businesses and the wonder of the market, but at the end of the day, they have no connection or experience with small business owners, particularly the ones in the lower- and middle-middle class neighborhoods that they claim they want to help.

Instead, they're resentful that someone might have the gall to try to make a steady living on his own rather than work for an anonymous company and angry that government programs might allow him to take advantage of health insurance benefits just as employees of larger companies take advantage of the ones they have.

When Republicans want to use this guy as an example of the small businesses that are in danger of being destroyed by estate taxes, they're all for highlighting him. But when it comes to helping his business stay on its feet by insulating him from spiralling health care costs? They throw a hissy fit. Maybe if more Republicans "walked the walk" about starting small businesses instead of just "talking the talk," they'd understand. But the odds are they won't and don't. Why? Because, as well as being cowards, they can't afford to give up the health insurance that their employer provides.

[RichM]

I want to live in Amy's world, I really do. Because in her world, you can always say raw-raw things about Big Brother government and the corporations who control it without fear of retribution. For you see, dear Amy, if we acted like you kindred friends at Free Republic, we would be having fund raisers to track down your finances, find out intimate details of you family and gathering personal information all in an effort to defame you to make our point. As it is, in Amy's world, she gets to make incredibly false, insensitive and stupid statements and get on with her life. Unlike the Frost family.

[flory]

Amy - I USED to have KP HMO. Even while self-employed. Very reasonable rates and wonderful service! I loved them. Then, guess what: they left NC. And I had to scramble to find crappy insurance at a (relatively) low rate. Now, I pay over $500/month for a 10K deductible. Great, huh?

It's a sure bet Amy lives somewhere in CA. Kaiser is about as close to what a national healthcare plan would look like as its possible to get in this country. The healthplan owns the hospitals and employs the doctors (well-sorta, but that's another discussion). Because of all that Kaiser's premiums are significantly lower than any other HMOs for the same, or better, quality of care. The healthplan subsidizes both the hospitals and the doctors.

(I don't think Wellpoint is interested in subsidizing anything but it's CEOs deferred compensation plan.)

Kaiser is a great idea.

Only available now in California since they abandoned their plan to try and go national.

[Aunt Deb]

Wow, I'm still reeling from the truly uninformed comment about the cabinet installers from Home Depot. Karen seems to believe that the installers got all that money themselves. If only.

But honestly. That was such a completely clueless comment that now I'm wondering where these people who are hearting on private health insurance and HMOs think their premiums actually go. Into the good fairy box??

And then there's their conception of risk. Makes you realize once again just how hopeless this NCLB fix for education is.

[Bruce Garrett]

Thats $750 per person per day.

And you figure that $750 dollars went right into each man's pockets?

Are you really that dumb, or are you just playing it for effect...?