Got a minute?

Do you know your lifetime insurance cap—you know, the maximum amount your insurance company will pay before it drops your coverage? Many people don't even know what their caps are because they're unlikely to reach them. For most, a $1 million cap seems pretty far off, but for people with chronic conditions like hemophilia, that cap could be reached within their lifetimes. Some kids reach them even before adulthood.

I'm blessed to have medical insurance with no lifetime cap—a rare commodity! It's a good thing I like my job because financially, it would be hard to justify leaving my district simply because we don't have a lifetime cap! However, there are many others who must live in fear of hitting their caps and losing their coverage. They have to make treatment decisions and career choices with that looming roadblock in mind. And that's where the Health Insurance Coverage Protection Act comes in—and you, if you so choose!

Congress is considering bills to adjust the minimum lifetime cap to adjust for inflation. Medical costs have risen exponentially, so the minimum cap (first set by many insurance companies in the '70s) would be raised to $10 million.

Read more about the bill here.

The National Hemophilia Foundation has set up an easy way to send your U.S. senators and your representative an email to let them know you support this bill. It only takes a minute, but the cumulative impact of these emails could make this happen.

Write your senators.

Write your representative.

(You may want to modify the email text if you or a family member does not have hemophilia. You can always change it to "my friend" because you know a family affected by that bleeding disorder! And yes, personal calls and letters are more effective than mass emails, but we'll take what we can get!)

Questions about hemophilia? Click here.

I don't blog about hemophilia much because I've been asked not to, and for the last four years, we've been blessed to live without the worst complications of that chronic bleeding disorder. We try to minimize its presence in our lives as much as possible, keeping it in the background. But it's always there, and we can never forget that for many families, complications and financial issues keep hemophilia in the forefront of their lives. For their sakes more than ours, please take a minute to click on those links and lend a hand. Thanks.

And while you're at it, please pray for a cure.