Families USA Health Care Heroes Award
Press Release, January 24, 2008
The Frost Family
In late September 2007, 12-year-old Graeme Frost of Baltimore delivered the weekly Democratic radio address and urged the President not to veto a bipartisan bill that would reauthorize the state Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and expand it to cover millions of uninsured children.
Three years earlier, this program played a vital role in Graeme's recovery from a terrible car accident. When the Frost family vehicle hit a patch of black ice and slammed into a tree, Graeme and his younger sister Gemma were rushed to the hospital with severe brain trauma. Graeme was in a coma for a week and remained in the hospital for five months, where he had to undergo intensive therapy to learn how to walk and talk again. Gemma also sustained severe injuries, including a cranial fracture. She is now blind in her left eye and has difficulty with memory, learning, and speech.
During the time that the children were hospitalized, the Frost family relied on CHIP. "I am incredibly thankful," said Graeme and Gemma's mother, Bonnie, "Without the CHIP program, we would be in another place emotionally and financially. I can't imagine how we would have managed." Because of their experience, Bonnie and Halsey Frost decided to come out in support of CHIP and share their story about how the program helped their family.
During Graeme's radio address, he said that he would like other children to have the same access to health care that he and Gemma had: "My parents work really hard and always make sure my sister and I have everything we need, but the hospital bills were huge. We got the help we needed because we had health insurance for us through the CHIP program. But there are millions of kids out there who don't have CHIP, and they wouldn't get the care that my sister and I did if they got hurt."
Graeme's radio address aired on stations across the country, and the family could not have expected the backlash that followed. Right-wing bloggers criticized the Frosts, misconstrued their circumstances, and insisted that they were too wealthy to receive coverage through CHIP. The family's home, neighborhood, finances, and even their countertops, were scrutinized. Other critics of the CHIP expansion joined in, and soon, the Frost family fell victim to what became a baseless, all-out smear campaign.
Instead of arguing over the merits of the CHIP program, conservatives attacked Graeme and his family. But the truth is that the Frosts are exactly who CHIP was designed to cover, children in hardworking American families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to afford private insurance.
Soon, news of the Frosts and the conservative assault spread across the nation. The story appeared in Time, Newsweek, USA Today, The New York Times, other major publications, and countless blogs.
Despite false accusations and vicious attacks on their family, the Frosts did not waiver. They stood by their support of the CHIP program and health coverage for America's uninsured children. Bonnie Frost said, "The whole point of it for me was that this program helped my family, and I wanted it to help others."
Graeme and his family had the strength to speak out and the courage to do what was right. And for this, we would like to present the Health Care Heroes Award to the Frost family.
