Rep. Chris Murphy on Right Wing Smear of Frost Family
Rep. Chris Murphy: "Let me tell you a story. I know that you've heard it, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, but it's pretty indicative of how low the other side is prepared to go to try to undermine children's health care. There's a family, the Frosts, and their son, Graeme Frost, didn't have health insurance, 13-year-old, suffers from severe brain injuries as a result of a car crash. And he's been -- the family has been the face of some of this discussion, because the father is self-employed, he's a woodworker, the mother's had some part-time jobs on and off, they are not living in destitute poverty, but they're playing by the rules, doing everything that we ask them to do, paying their taxes and contributing to society. But because their son has a pre-existing condition, they've been turned down for health insurance time and time and time again. And so they have to pay these exorbitant costs for an injury caused by a car crash for a 13-year-old boy out of their pockets."And so this is the kind of family that we're talking about. A family that's done everything we've asked. A family that's getting by, but because their son has an injury that excludes him from most private insurance, he has no other recourse than the SCHIP program, a stop gap solution until the family can try to find some insurance program that will cover them. Because that's what families want to do in the end.
"Well, what happened? Well, this family had their whole life uncovered by the right wing that's trying to stop children's health care from going forward. Every tax return, every purchase that they've ever had, everything down to the type of countertops that they have in their kitchen was exposed by the right wing of this city to try to prove that this family is just leaching off the government, Ms. Wasserman Schultz. This is a 13-year-old kid with brain injuries, a family whose done everything they can to try to get insurance and haven't found it."
Note: Rep. Murphy accuses the right wing of attacking the 13-year-old boy, however he is actually only 12.