I noted earlier that, two weeks after much of the right went after the Frost family, another S-CHIP family stepped up to endorse the bipartisan compromise legislation recently vetoed by the president. Bethany Wilkerson, a two-year-old who was born with a heart defect, was able to get life-saving surgery thanks to her S-CHIP coverage. The good news, politically, is that Bethany’s family struggles enough financially to meet far-right standards. As her father said on a conference call yesterday, “We rent a house, we have one car that is a junker. Let them dig away. I have $67 in my checking account. Does that answer your question?”
A lot of us joked that the Wilkerson family might want to be cautious, because the Limbaughs and Malkins of the world have proven to be surprisingly vicious about the issue. That said, I didn’t seriously think the right would go after the Wilkersons. The smearing of the Frost family proved to be a ridiculous embarrassment for the right, and I kind of assumed conservatives wouldn’t be foolish enough to make the same mistake twice.
And yet, here’s National Review’s Mark Hemingway, going after the family anyway.
Combine that pressing economic need with Tampa Bay’s Most Photogenic and Heartbreakingly Unhealthy Baby and maybe this time congressional Democrats have found the right S-CHIP spokesfamily.
Except they haven’t. While the debate around the Frost family at least initially centered around their relative wealth, the issue really at hand is one of bad behavior. While USAction and a labyrinthine maze of leftist activist groups prepare to rally around images of Tampa Bay’s Most Photogenic Baby holding up a crayon sign that says “Don’t Veto Me,” Dara and Brian Wilkerson are real poster children — for irresponsible decisions.
Hemingway’s rationale is even more callous than you might expect.
Let’s take this one charge at a time.
On the conference call, Dara admitted to me that she and Brian had been talking about having children since before they were married.
Stunning. A dating couple mentioned the possibility of having children. The Wilkersons are obviously history’s greatest monsters.
She further admitted that after they were married she voluntarily left a job at a country club that had good health insurance, because the situation was “unmanageable.”
Hemingway left out a pertinent detail: Dara left that job seven years before Bethany was born. The implication in the National Review piece is that Dara should have stayed at her job in order to provide for her family. The reality shows otherwise. (And Hemingway’s decision to leave this fact out doesn’t reflect well on his argument.)
[T]he couple went on to have a baby anyway, presuming that others would pay for it and certainly long before they knew their daughter would have heart [sic] defect that probably cost the gross national product of Burkina Faso to fix.
This may come as a surprise, but couples frequently procreate. It’s shocking, I know, but all of those kids you see running around? They’re largely the result of couples having sex, and some of those couples don’t have health insurance. Should we limit parenthood to those who qualify for private insurance?
I think it’s rude to accept huge amounts of public assistance and then express gratitude by asking taxpayers to extend a Children’s health program to cover college-age kids who come from households making more than $80,000 a year.
If Hemingway’s been following this debate, he knows this claim is bogus. If he hasn’t been following this debate, he wrote a column without getting his facts straight.
Bethany Wilkerson is healthy. She is covered by existing programs and has already received the much [sic] of the medical care she needs. The current debate centers on expanding the program, not kicking the Frosts and the Wilkersons to the curb.
That’s patently false. Indeed, it’s part of the legislative rationale for expansion — as Sen. Chuck Grassley, a conservative Republican, has said, the administration’s proposal would be insufficient to maintain the current S-CHIP rolls. Some families, including possibly the Frosts and the Wilkersons, would once again be without coverage for their low-income kids. American families would most certainly be “kicked to the curb.”
So I hope Bethany grows up strong — I’m worried about her. Not because I’m worried that the state won’t take care of her, but I’m afraid that her parents will continue to set a bad example.
Stay classy, National Review. You just smeared another struggling family with bogus claims because they dared to speak up for a good policy.
I shouldn’t be surprised, but the fact that clowns like Hemingway are this shameless is breathtaking.