Holy Buck, Fatman!

It seems the assholeosphere has been leading the attack on the young boy who delivered the Democratic radio address concerning SCHIP and it’s benefits to a family struggling to make ends meet. The wingnuts got all up in arms about a family taking a *gasp* government handout that they went as far as to post the Frosts address on the website. This led Michelle Malkin to take a drive over to check out the neighborhood of Butchers Hill and come back with a report for her hordes. Quoth MM:

Why did I take the time to go to Baltimore? Because bloggers raised questions about the Frosts’ financial situation and made specific reference to these pieces of real estate. I did not “harass” the Frosts. I simply reported what the tenant told me and described what I saw after driving by their home. My basic reporting rebutted some impressions left by other bloggers on the right who haven’t been to these sites and assumed they were high-end luxury properties. They’re not. Moreover, I corrected the mistake that some of these bloggers made in overvaluing the house at $400,000-plus. It’s closer to $300,000.

Well, Miss Malkin, you have ventured into *MY* neighborhood and now it’s personal. MM wanted to see Butchers Hill/Fells Point for herself. Well, she failed to talk to some MORE residents.

What the wingnutosphere forgets to mention is that the Frosts bought their home in 1990 for $55,000. According to the Baltimore Sun. What they ALSO forget is how the the Mess that Greenspan Made has given way to inflated prices, which gave way to inflated property tax assessments in 2006. Although the State of Maryland has agreed to revalue certain assessments that were appealed, most in my neighborhood were denied. I was, and I suspect the Frost’s were, too. Butchers Hill and Fells Point are the cash cow of Baltimore city. To reassess us would be denying themselves much needed funding in a city striggling to attract more homeowners among a growing crime problem.

The right has also failed to acknowledge the stagnant–even decline in median income for the City of Baltimore. I know this to be fairly true simply because I cannot work in Baltimore City and draw a salary that will pay my mortgage. I have no choice but to commute two hours a day to make a living wage and to keep my home. I suspect that being away from her children is not an option for Mrs. Frost. I have one child and must chose between a long commute or a job near home. To keep my home, I commute. My husband works in the neighborhood. To be fair, I only have one child–and she is a teenager.

The Right also failed to acknowledge the rising cost of energy. Of course, no one wants to mention that in order to heat your home, you should set aside 5-600$ a month just to be safe. I conserve as much as possible, installed timers on the Thermostat, installed energy saving lights and kept them off as much as I could. My electric bill *STILL* went up. I suspect the Frosts pay a bit more. Their house is slightly larger then my own.

And finally, healthcare. I know a little something about this. A short time ago, I was a contractor as explained here. because my services were contracted, I was elgible to purchase a policy as a small business owner. It was priced at $1200 for one plus a child—in 2003. I had a choice: Starve or pay for healthcare. I shouldn’t have had to make such a choice!

The truth is this: NO ONE WANTS TO REMAIN POOR! The fact that the Frosts took advantage of MCHIP shouldn’t be the big issue. What needs to be addressed is the rising cost of living that has stagnated an otherwise vibrant business owner to the point where his only choice to save his children was to enter into the program. $55,000 a year with six children is nearly impossible these days. I tried to make it on  that with ONE child.

The Frosts should be a GOP wet dream. They’ve been married for many years, have six beautiful children, own their own home and abide by the laws of the land. They follow what many Goppers tout as the path to financial freedom: entrepreneurship. They have one fatal flaw, though. They haven’t earned the millions that most GOP supporters expect small business owners to achieve. Mr. frost has failed to grow his business at a rapid rate. The debate is about a program that helped the family in a time of dire need. Now we need to start asking some very serious questions: Middle class families are without affordable healthcare. WHY? It’s the economy STUPID!
Now, back to Ms. Malkin and the rest of her Ilk: I want you to come back to Baltimore and sit down to have a beer with me, a former MCHIP recipient, a former single mother and resident of Fells Point/Butchers Hill. I’ll show you homes that are over 400K and some that are still no more then 80K. I’ll show her what NCLB has done to Baltimore City schools and WHY the frosts chose the Park school. I’ll show her a Real Estate situation that has homes on the market for years. Hell, I’ll even chose a bar! Butts & Betty’s on the Corner of Gough and Collington. MM is pretty familiar with Collington. Why, she’s already been down that road already.

I had the GALL (according to Commenter Cham) to Spread my Legs and Procreate at the tender age of 20. ( the man who manipulated me into conceiving-and forcing me to have the baby–I suppose that doesn’t really matter. Whole ‘nother story)

Being proud, I refused to submit to public assistance. I worked. HARD. 70hrs a week sometimes. (Again, not going to mention the father of said child who, well…didn’t like that whole idea of working. Whole ‘Nother Story.) I did take one thing that was offered to me: MCHIP. It allowed me to afford well baby visits (I paid on a FEE SCALE—AGAIN–Not entirely free) and when my daughter contracted rotavirus from daycare, it partially paid for her NOT TO DIE FROM DEHYDRATION at the age of three.(my part of that Hospital bill? $3,000. That’s an asston of money when your effin poor. But I paid it off in installments) I had no intention of staying in the program. I was still working. I made, what…25K a year in 1997? I was going to school. I was trying to make my life better. Awesome, right? Right. Not everyone wants to take a handout. Sometimes, there aren’t any other alternatives.

Well, the middle class in America is fast becoming the poor class. We have Uber Rich, Investor Class and EVERYONE ELSE. With the cost of healthcare going up at an alarming rate and wages STAGNANT for nearly 10 years, I’d have to say that offering healthcare to a wider group isn’t a bad thing. What are your solutions to more and more businesses passing on the increasing cost of health insurance on to the employee—without making a tiny effort of raising their wages? Corporate profits are sky high, too. Maybe the CEO could take a paycut? Ohhh no. Probably not. His Ayn Randian “mememe” attitude is justified! The ilk that support that way of thinking forgive him for his vanity. It’s okay. Pursuit of self satisfaction is ultimately the best thing one can do–It will trickle down! Oh wait—that was piss.

What is the solution to the nasty inflation problem we have (no doubt brought on by the increasing cost of corn, oil and other commodities) What is the solution to jobs that once held the working class together being shipped overseas faster then you can say Ni hao, Wo-duh ming-d’zih (that’s HELLO! In Chinese) or—HOLA! And Finally, what is the solution on the fact that most people in the middle class are now living on credit–nearly $8,500 of CC debt per household? No doubt thats because of that whole stagnant wage thing. Give me solutions that will help people get better paying jobs within their skill set–not some bullshit about bailing out some stupid hedge fund manager because somewhere, and investor *MIGHT* have an idea and start up a company with the gains from his investment. That is a long term goal. I want short term solutions for people who need it NOW.

I agree, “sin taxes” DO effect the working poor disproportionately. I mean, if your life is spent being hired and fired for nothing but cost reduction, then I’d drink and smoke, too.

If people TRULY want this to be an “Ownership society”(libertarian & GOP Rhetoric) then proponents of this idealism really need to start educating them on staying away from such sins and saving their money. They probably won’t need the healthcare as often if they do, too.

I hear the bitching. Now give me some solution. Debate is good.

AT$T has decided to update it’s terms of service with some seriously ambiguous language.  Quoth the corporation:

AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes (a) violates the Acceptable Use Policy; (b) constitutes a violation of any law, regulation or tariff (including, without limitation, copyright and intellectual property laws) or a violation of these TOS, or any applicable policies or guidelines, or (c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.

So, what does that mean, exactly? If I were a customer and I complained about their service on Consumerist.com, could they cancel my service? If I wrote something negative about the company on my blog while using their tubes, could they shut my off?

The good thing is, I am NOT an AT$T customer. I suspect, however, that if I write shit about Comcast, all bets are off, though.

Whatever happened to that whole free wifi idea? Killed by large corporations who make killings on ISP service?

Silly Silly GOP Candidates.

It seems that the front runners, Guiliani, Thompson, Romney, and McCain have declined the invitation to debate at Morgan State University. Why, do you ask? Well, some analysts are saying this:

“There’s no group that actually votes in the Republican primary that is going to hold it against these guys for either A, not courting the black vote, or B, not showing up at Morgan State,” said Donald F. Norris, chairman of the department of public policy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

“And there’s everything to lose by showing up,” Norris said. Participating could give the impression that they are sacrificing conservative tenets, which might “very well hurt you with some elements of the Republican base.”

And what, pray tell are these tenants? Making sure those pesky colored people know their place? To me, a “Half breed” if you will, this smacks of a few things that boils down to subtle racism/classism. I understand that the reasons given for not attending the debate were “scheduling conflicts” but for all front runners to have the same conflicts? Things that make you go Hmmm…

So what is the real reason the four guys didn’t want to show up? Could it be that minorities might be disproportionately poor and might utilize social services more often? Do they believe that the tenants of Conservative views are simply lost to these people? I betcha it’s because they didn’t have that black friend yet.

It’s silly to cast aside an entire group of people simply because you believe that “They aren’t going to vote for you anyway.” This might not be what these guys are really saying, but it’s a strong message to the Minority community: We don’t care about issues surrounding your lives and your community. I mean, just look at the state of the City of New Orleans….

In light of the recent upsurge in racial tensions, I would think that these candidates would welcome an invitation to build a bridge and begin a process of cultivating a potential minority voter. For instance, if these guys really believe that the black/minority vote is not worth courting, then they should revisit the numbers of Black and Hispanic people who voted Republican simply because of issues such as Gay Marriage and Abortion. These issues are central to many deeply religious blacks & Hispanics, as they often oppose both in line with their religious views. If the conservative tenants could potentially help a poor minority, sell it to them like they sold the social issues. Tell them how their fiscally conservative ideals could help move a poor person into a working member of their “Ownership Society”.

*pauses for laughter*

Okay okay. I know. I know. That last line was a real zinger, wasn’t it?

Anyway, it’s clear that these white men are disconnected from the issues that plague minority communities. They aren’t even going to openly share their views, explain their stances and how these can help minority communities.  Without starting to court these votes early, the line might as well be “They aren’t going to vote for us anyway!”

These guys don’t even want to bother trying. What are they afraid of?

Not too long ago, I was uninsured.

Mind you, I made decent (Not GREAT)  money as a professional paralegal for a rather large but famously bankrupt telecom company back in 2003. The easiest way for them to retain  employees but not have to actually pay benefits was to force them into contracted positions. The contracting company was not obliged to offer health care. Screw it, you were on your own.

No problem, right? I could simply buy n individual policy and have the coverage I needed to maintain well visits preventative care.

You would think that, wouldn’t you?

Not so much. It seems that with my spotty family history of cancer, I  was a bit of a risk to the insurance companies. I could pay a monthly premium of something like $1500K for 2 people with a $5,000 deductible, or I could pay more with a lower deductible. So, I had to make a choice. I had to either buy my health insurance or pay my mortgage and eat. I simply couldn’t afford to do both. So I took a chance. I chanced it that I wouldn’t get sick nor would my daughter. It was a risky gamble, but hey…priorities, right?

So, I decided to send an application into the M-CHIP, Maryland’s Children’s healthcare program. It was another gamble I was forced to take. Of course, I was denied. I made too much money.

So, there I was. Too rich to get assistance. Too poor to pay for private healthcare.

What. The. Fuck?

So, last evening the largely bipartisan S-CHIP Bill passed the House. Lawmakers recognized that those who are denying basic healthcare to children aren’t going to win over voters, so they decided that working together is better then fighting all the time.  Except our dear leader thinks that people like myself would opt to drop their coverage and hurry up and sign up for M-CHIP. Is he kidding? I mean…Seriously? Dropping even crappy coverage won’t be a viable option to many families. Why? Because many of them don’t even have coverage. They simply cannot afford it, just like I was a few years back.

Those who worship at the Alter of the Free Market mindset will state that all we need to do is lower those damn friviolous lawsuits and the prices will go down.  The evil Lawyers are getting too RICH!!!!

I call bullshit. A Market is largely consumer choice driven. If ia company offers a decent product at an affordable price, then consumers will purchase it. However, healthcare isn’t bought and sold like Mp3 players. It’s much more complicated then that. Any industry that has to answer to shareholders has one major goal–increase profits. Insurance companies lose profits when they pay out claims so it is always within the best interest of the insurance company to deny claims and have that pesky terminally ill patient  simply die.  So, some chimp in a suit is sitting in a cubicle telling an experienced Dr. that a test or treatment isn’t really medically necessary. Since that denial will stand to save a few bucks in some fatcat’s pocket, it was all worth it, right?

Chimpy McFlysuit has never worked a hard day in his life. he never had to make tough choices like healthcare or housing, food or medicine. he never had to work 14 hours on his feet and go home to care for the children. He never stood in an unemployment line. He never knew the indignity of being denied something like healthcare can do for your morale. What does he know?

He knows that his rich friends will benefit from his veto. Their portfolios will thank him.