On June 2nd my wife, who was 32 1/2 weeks pregnant with twins fell ill. After being monitored at the hospital, she was diagnosed on June 3rd with preeclampsia. The next morning she had an emergency Cesaerean section.

Thankfully our babies were strong and healthy. At 32 1/2 weeks, the odds were on their side, but the fear I had from not knowing for sure whether they would breathe on their own when being pulled out of my wife's body was palpable. Still, at just a hair over 4 pounds, and without a sufficiently developed central nervous system, my babies were immediately whisked to the Level 3 NICU at one of Boston's finest hospitals.

My wife and I have wonderful health insurance. And it's a good thing, because my babies are going to be in the NICU for at least another 3 weeks. I can't imagine what the final cost will be, but I imagine it is going to be over $200,000 -- maybe more.

At the Level 3 NICU, you see the same faces day after day. When a baby is brought here, it's not for a few days. It is for weeks or more. With modern technology, you see a lot of happiness and relief around here. Not many babies die here anymore. But, still, the constant worry over whether your baby gained enough weight over the last 24 hours; whether his heart rate and oxygen levels are okay; and whether he will have any lasting problems never seems really to go away.

The last thing that any parent should have to worry about is whether their newborn baby will immediately bankrupt them.

I honestly have no idea whether I will have a bill to pay at the end of all of this. I've never had a medical expense like this. I have no idea if my family's health insurance has some weird lifetime or annual limit on payments that is coming close to being exhausted. I have no idea if some insurance agent is going to decide that my babies should have been sent home instead of the NICU, or should have been sent to a less expensive NICU at some other hospital. What I do know is that I'm still fighting a $3,000 bill I received from the Yale Medical Center after my carrier refused to pay for an emergency visit there when my wife started having pre-term labor at 29 weeks.

What I also know is that it is absurd for any parent in my situation to have to give a second's thought to who will be paying for the NICU. As a country, we should be willing to agree to pay collectively -- that is, through the government's fisc -- for the care that our youngest citizens need at the outset of their lives. If the baby's family is poor, the NICU should be covered. If the baby's family is middle class, it should not have to become poor before Medicaid kicks in, nor should it have to pony up a deductible for the NICU care. If the baby's family is wealthy, their care should be completely covered too -- after all, they'll be paying more into the system by way of income tax.

I am now utterly convinced that, as a matter of MORALITY (and not simply economics), our youngest citizens should get a full chance at life without bankrupting their parents. Having reached that conclusion, it is difficult for me to see when it could ever be moral to decide that a citizen is old enough NOT to deserve a full chance at life. Simply put, single payer health care is the ONLY moral system.

I challenge you to come in and tell the families at the NICU otherwise.

UPDATE: Wow, my first rec list. I am really honored and humbled. All the credit goes to my precious babies, who have already taught me so many amazing lessons in just 11 days.