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 On Sunday, Jeffrey Cain, MD, was cross-country skiing on the Continental Divide. Two days later, he was pounding the pavement on Capitol Hill. That would be unremarkable if Cain was not a dou-ble amputee who skis on two metal limbs – and who is lobbying lawmakers to keep prosthetics af-fordable. “We should've asked everyone to wear shorts,” jokes Cain, a leader of the Amputee Coali-tion of America who led approximately 200 amputees on a lobbying blitz Tuesday in support of the Prosthetic and Customized Parity Act. The legislation, due to be reintroduced this spring, would re-quire private insurance providers to cover prosthetic limbs as they do other major medical expenses. Many companies cap benefits at levels so low that families can't afford prosthetics, while others only cover an amputee's first artificial limb. That, says Cain, is “like telling your child that he can only have one tennis shoe for the rest of his life,” because prostheses usually need to be replaced every few years – even more frequently for children. They might be disabled – or “inconvenienced,” as 12-year-old quadrilateral amputee Sean Brame prefers to be called – but these politically prescient amputees are hardly hobbling through the lobby-ing process. Per disclosure filings, the Coalition spent $80,000 to lobby for prosthetic parity in 2008. Coalition members expect that sponsors Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) will introduce the parity bill within weeks. Representative Robert Andrews (D-NJ) championed the legislation last year in the House. Lawmakers will face quiet resistance from some insurance companies, who say that full parity for prosthetics creates an expensive mandate. But Cain and his fellow Coalition members aren't the kind of folks who give up easily. Just check out their t-shirts: “GET A LIFE,” they read, “or get a prosthesis that will let you have one.” #
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