Support the FACE Act by signing this petition: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/face-act-of-2009.html

Also, please consider contacting your representative and senators. This is the letter that I sent my senators and representative. Feel free to copy/paste/immitate as you like:

As a parent and a citizen of the United States, I want my daughter, Caroline, to succeed in life and as an American. I want her to be proud of the only country that she will ever know as home. I want to be able to tell her that she can grow up and be anything she wants, including President. However, as it stands, I cannot tell her this.

Our family was formed through international adoption. My husband and I, both US citizens, brought our daughter home when she was only 8 months old. We are the only parents she will ever know, and the US is the only home that she will ever know. However, because federal laws treat international adoptees of US citizens as immigrants rather than as children of United States citizens who happen to be born abroad, my daughter will be unfairly denied this dream.

Support FACE Act legislation (S.1359 and H.R. 3110), and stop this unfair double standard and second class citizenship for children of US citizens.

Thank you for your time.

If you met me, you’d have no idea that I have ever had any health problems.  I’m still fairly young, just 30.  I have managed up to 60 employees at a time, but I currently chase a toddler around all day.  I teach an English class at a local community college at night and have been described as “energetic” and “ethusiastic” by a number of students.  Now that I’ve been on a “getting healthy” kick, I exercise daily.  I bike my daughter around the neighborhood or do floor exercises or a killer workout video for about 30 minutes a day.  I love swimming and singing and dancing even though I’m not particularly good at any of these activities.  Yes, if you met me, you’d have no idea that my medical expenses are about $28,000- $30,000 a year for a fairly rare, potentially debilitating, chronic condition that I have now had for 8 years.

 There is no doubt in my mind that without my expensive medication, without my awesome specialist, and without the expensive tests done to me on a yearly basis, that I would have gone the way of most patients with this condition in years past.  Without these treatments and tesys available, most patients were severly disabled by now.  Mobility is often one of the first things to go, but blindness may also ensue.  In fact, if I had been diagnosed about 10 years earlier than I was, I probably would have been told to go ahead and sign up for unemployment and disability because there was little the doctor could have done. 

Isn’t amazing what a difference 10 years makes? 

However, I was only fortunate enough to receive these treatments, tests, and care by a specialist because I have been fortunate enough to not only have continuous health insurance but to have enough knowledge that I knew when and how to fight the insurance company’s inevitable denial of my claims. 

Over the past 8 years, my husband and I have been careful to make sure that our coverage continued with his employer or my own employer and to make sure that there was never any gaps.  Also, about 6 years ago, I became a licensed insurance agent.  This gave me just enough insight on insurance law to figure out when I had all ready had coverage wrongly denied in those first 2 years and when doctors had illegally tried to charge me for the amount of money that they wanted despite their agreement with my insurance company.  I also learned just how to avoid these situations in the future by systematically providing appropriate documentations of coverage to my insurance company and repeatedly calling my doctor’s bluff to send me to collections for something that I didn’t owe.  

If one of those two things had not occured, either the continuous coverage or the gaining of insurance knowledge, I am positive that I would have long ago not had access to the treatments and tests that have allowed me to be symptom free today.  I may have easily run myself into so much unnecessary medical debt that I would have had to declare bankruptcy and/or depend on the government welfare system due to disability from lack of treatment and poverty due to medical bills. 

Yes, I am a fortunate one. 

However, I can see how easily I could have not been so lucky.  I have seen just how hard insurance companies, doctor’s offices, and hospitals try to play a Vegas-like game with suffering patients who are in their weakest momments.  They are counting on the odds being in their favor.  They are counting on testing the limits of laws of which the patients aren’t aware.  They are counting on dealing with people who are going through emotional and physical strain and are simply unable to find the answers that they need.  They are the house, and they hold all the cards.  We, the American people, are the chumps losing our life savings to the slot machine that we call health care.

This is why Americans deserve a public option.  Americans deserve a way to tell the insurance company and the doctor’s office and the hospital billing services people to take a hike.  People who have diseases that can be treated deserve to have those diseases treated without harrassment by these people.  They deserve to be productive members of society without fear of ending up bankrupt or on welfare.  They deserve to have the opportunity to experience  many years without symptoms, just as I have. 

That is my personal story.

On a not so personal note, this policy is even smart for small business owners who are trying to attract the best and the brightest, but have little to offer.  A public option makes these small businesses more attractive and more competetive with large coorporations.

Really, the only downside here is for large corporate interests, insurance companies, and skeezy doctor’s offices and hospitals. 

Please consider signing this petition or taking some other action to make a public health care option available.

http://georgiademocrat.org/healthcarepetition

I should also note that yesterday Caroline added the word “exactly” to her vocabulary.  She even seems to have some idea of the meaning of the word, saying “exactly” while putting a puzzle together.    More and more she is speaking clearly and in 2,3, & 4 wordsentences.

Caroline couted out 10 blocks today multiple times with only a bit of help from Mommy! (She tends to forget the numbers 4 and 7) Pretty dern good for 19 months!