Meet the New SCHIP Sockpuppet

When the whole thing with 12 year old Graeme Frost blew up in the Dems faces they found themselves without an urchin to pose for the cameras and tell the press how that mean ol' Mr. Bush was going to condemn them to a life of misery if the SCHIP program wasn't expanded to include 25 year old children of families making $83,000 a year. Pelosi and gang went to the bullpen and came up with a relief urchin:

After the Graeme Frost affair, you’d think there would be lessons learned all around the folly of manipulating children to make a political argument. So when USAction sent out an invite to a conference call to introduce Bethany Wilkerson as the new face of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), I remained skeptical. Bethany, a two-year-old with a heart defect, is being trumpeted by USAction as the new face of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program debate. ...

With two properties and three cars the Frost family’s personal wealth and relative need for free health insurance was the subject of much controversy. I doubt similar questions will be raised about Dara and Brian Wilkerson. She’s a waitress, and he works at the restaurant doing minor repairs and barbacking. Their employer does not provide health insurance, they rent, drive one beat-up car, and have a combined income of $34,000. On the conference call, Brian piped up to add “I have $57 in my checking account if that helps.” 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.

On the conference call, Dara admitted to me that she and Brian had been talking about having children since before they were married. 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.” From there she took a job at a restaurant with no health insurance, and the 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 a heart defect that probably cost the gross national product of Burkina Faso to fix. But not knowing about future health problems is the reason we have insurance in the first place. ...

For Dara and Brian Wilkerson, the fact that they don’t have health insurance is less about falling through the cracks than the decisions they’ve made. We know that Dara is at least capable of getting a job with insurance — so why does she not have one now? Even if it is difficult insure her child’s pre-existing condition, what about her and her husband’s health? Perhaps it’s rude to ask that question, but 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.

Which brings us to another salient point — Bethany Wilkerson is healthy. She is covered by existing programs and has already received the much of the medical care she needs. The current debate centers on expanding the program, not kicking the Frosts and the Wilkersons to the curb.

There's more background info here. The Dems are so desperate to override Bush's veto that yesterday they trotted out Paul Simon - not the now dead former Illinois Senator Simon, but the "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" Simon. This whole thing has become a children's game. Why should Republicans vote to override the veto? Because Simon says.