Mother of four Stacie Ritter attended today's march and rally outside the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on behalf of her "special interests" -- her two daughters, both of whom are cancer survivors. "We cannot make our children pre-existing conditions," she said, speaking to the crowd of 200+ health care advocates gathered before her today.

Ritter's twins Madeline and Hannah were denied medication after they'd been diagnosed with leukemia at the age of four. Thankfully, the girls beat the cancer. But to stay healthy and keep growing, they needed to receive growth-hormone injections regularly because the glands controlling their growth had been damaged beyond repair by the cancer.

Big insurer Cigna did not agree with the recommendation of the Ritter's doctor, and refused to cover the shots for the twins. Out-of-pocket, each shot cost Stacie and her husband $440....a course of payments which quickly drained the family's savings, forcing them to declare bankruptcy in 2003.

Stacie did not take Cigna's denial of care lying down and has since become a tremendous advocate for reform. She's taken her fight to the CEO of Cigna's house and their corporate headquarters. At the rally, Ritter made an impassioned plea to members of Congress to deliver on health insurance reform now.

"My kids are running out of time. They will only be insured until they're 18 yrs old. As long as my husband doesn't lose his job before then but in this economy, who knows?

"We've been denied vital medications from Cigna...[but] after many, many months of hounding them and having the press hounding them, they finally cowered. We shouldn't have had to go through that. That was not necessary. They did not have the right to say my children did not deserve that medicine when their doctor said they did.

"Cigna doesn't have the right to be my death panel."

With the amount of money--between $10M and $20M--that Cigna and other big insurers funneled through corporate front group the U.S. Chamber to pay for attack ads against health reform, not only could Cigna have covered Stacie's twins hormone shots--but also provided coverage to 3,000 or so additional U.S. families.