My two children have received excellent public health benefits in San Francisco since before they were born. I qualified for no-cost Medi-Cal during both pregnancies though my partner and I were both self-employed. After my children were born, this coverage has allowed me to focus on taking care of our kids - now ages 5 and 2.5 - rather than get a job just for the healthcare benefits. The care I can provide them has given them a great start in life - including working at their co-op preschool, giving them healthy food, and taking them to museums, parks and libraries. I've slept well knowing they have excellent medical coverage either through Healthy Families or San Francisco's Healthy Kids and I am proud and happy to have spent their early years doing what I believe is best for my kids and our family.

On the morning of my son's very first day of kindergarten a few weeks ago, he woke up with a swollen, pink, and teary eye. I knew he couldn't stay at school like that, but I had to follow through on all the build-up to the first day! We had to go through the motions, line up with the class, then leave to deal with the pink eye. After watching him disappear into his classroom, I consulted the school nurse who said he needed to see a doctor (though she thought we did the right thing in bringing him up for the first day of school). We took him to the nearby clinic where he has been seen since he was a baby, and the doctor said it looked like a bacterial infection had invaded the soft tissue and if we hadn't come in my son's vision might have been permanently affected! She prescribed oral antibiotics, and he was back in class the next day. If we hadn't had healthcare, I would have been at home with him applying compresses and using all the home remedies I could until it got really bad. He might have missed a week or more of school or even gone blind.

With my son on Healthy Families, he didn't miss out on his education or his eyesight. Our leaders need to realize that taking care of medical issues at the onset of a problem saves our government money and can change a child's life.