Tripp's Health Insurance

Todd Palin's Y'upik grandmother

Did you hear? Sarah Palin's grandchild is on government health care. That hypocrite!

Okay, first of all, the operative word is "grandchild." As in, not her primary responsibility.

Where is this all coming from? Some of the latest court documents in the Bristol/Levi custody case found here. It deals mainly with the child support issue. On page 8, we read this:

In addition to his request for accommodations based on his career choice, Mr. Johnston asks the Court to deduct $300 a month of his child support obligation for providing health insurance for Tripp.... There are two reasons why this request should be rejected:

First, Levi has never paid for any health insurance. One cannot seek a deduction for costs or support one has never paid.

Second, this insurance is unnecessary. Tripp is an enrolled tribal member of Curyung Tribal Council within the Bristol Bay Native Association consortium...The majority of Tripp's health care costs are already covered by IHS and the Alaska Native Medical Center, Mr. Johnston has no need to purchase additional health insurance and this deduction should not be allowed.

As you can see, the point of the passage is that Levi hasn't paid for any health insurance, nor does he have to, so a deduction for that is ridiculous.

But beyond that, the larger issue has become the supposed hypocrisy of Sarah Palin because her grandson has government health care. Um, you do know that this is because of Tripp's Native American ancestry, right? Whatever happened to the Left screaming at the top of their lungs about how we bad Whiteys stole the land from the Native Americans?

One of the commentors over at C4P has worked as a doctor with Native American tribes. This is what he had to say:

I worked for Indian Health.

The Indian Health Service is a part of the Public Health service. The commander is the Surgeon General. It is the sixth branch of the military in peace time. In the time of war it becomes part of the Coast Guard. More PHS doctors were killed in VietNam than any other branch of the service.

By serving with the PHS and IHS as a volunteer enlistee, I am an honorably discharged veteran. During the Iranian hostage crisis, I was put on standby to be shipped out to the Middle East.

The Indian Health Service (IHS) provides care for the Native Americans through their treaties. Health care was offered in exchange for giving up their lands. There is nothing socialized about this. The tribes bought their health care by giving up their lands.

One hundred years later, the white people are paying for health care that costs more than they ever expected. The Natives peoples are seeing oil and gas removed that they never knew existed.

Socialism is a redistribution of wealth. This is not socialism.

I believe the only member of the Palin Family who is not an enrolled Native American is Sarah Palin herself. This is an interracial couple, no matter what the left wants to say.

Part of being enrolled may vary from tribe to tribe. I had a patient who was part Hoh Tribe. She ran a general store on the reservation for 40 years and was good to the people. They asked her to be enrolled.

O/T and then there was the electrician who ran wiring out to the outhouse for his wife. They built a statue for him because he was the first person to wire a head for the reservation.

So just what is the Native American heritage of the Palin children? This article tells the story:

Todd Palin's 87-year-old Yup'ik grandmother, grew up living between two worlds. Her father was a Dutchman, Glass Eye Billy Bartman, a sled dog freighter in the Bristol Bay region and caretaker of the Alaska Packers saltry on the Igushik River."

Her mother was full-blooded Yup'ik, growing up in a sod-roofed barabara in the now-abandoned village of Tuklung, somewhere on the tundra between Dillingham and Togiak...

Lena Andree is one-half Yup'ik, and Todd Palin is one-eighth.

The Palin children are Native, too -- one-sixteenth, eligible for Indian health benefits under federal law, as lineal descendants of Native enrollees under the 1970 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act....

Well, there ya go. Health care in exchange for land, oil, etc.... A barter, if you will. And kind of a lopsided one, at that.

It just cracks me up that those on the Left, the supposed arbiters of social justice, are against this.

Some say that Sarah Palin wasn't kind to the Native tribes as Governor. I'm not going to get into a long-winded argument about that because I haven't researched it, but are you telling me that Tripp Palin should be denied the benefits of his ancestry because of something his grandmother did?

Blood is thicker than water.

On a sidenote, also highlighted in the court documents is the obvious fact that Bristol has only thus far asked for interim child support. In other words, support retroactive from this last year in which Levi has hardly paid anything, plus support until the court makes a final decision on the amount for the future.

The interim request is based on Levi's income in 2009. Those horrible subpoenas that Bristol's lawyer is issuing are to discover what Levi has made in the past to better figure out what the child support should be in the future.

This is how cases work. She demands an amount, you try to get less, she tries to find out your income, etc... And hopefully, the end result is a fair outcome for all parties. It's a back and forth. So quit whining.

And by the way, the burden of changing child support payments due to revised income lies on Levi's shoulders, not Bristol's. If he gets a job that only pays $25,000 a year, it's up to him to file papers for a modification of his child support payments.

So Levi, man up and quit crying about how much Bristol is asking for. Your ex-honey is raising your kid, not to mention, she has a job. And quit sending your pathetic sister out to whine for you. No wonder Bristol dumped your butt. You have some major growing up to do.