4 Month Old Healthy 'Chunky' Baby Denied Medical Insurance for being too fat

[debbierlus]

First, this baby is being PURELY breastfed. There are some babies that just chunk up and then thin out later. I was 18 pounds at three months old (also purely breastfed) and I have been a healthy weight for all my childhood and adult life. This is surreal.

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_13530098

GRAND JUNCTION — Alex Lange is a chubby, dimpled, healthy and happy 4-month-old.

But in the cold, calculating numbered charts of insurance companies, he is fat. That's why he is being turned down for health insurance. And that's why he is a weighty symbol of a problem in the health care reform debate.

Insurance companies can turn down people with pre-existing conditions who aren't covered in a group health care plan.

Alex's pre-existing condition — "obesity" — makes him a financial risk. Health insurance reform measures are trying to do away with such denials that come from a process called "underwriting."

"If health care reform occurs, underwriting will go away. We do it because everybody else in the industry does it," said Dr. Doug Speedie, medical director at Rocky Mountain Health Plans, the company that turned down Alex.

By the numbers, Alex is in the 99th percentile for height and weight for babies his age. Insurers don't take babies above the 95th percentile, no matter how healthy they are otherwise.

"I could understand if we could control what he's eating. But he's 4 months old. He's breast-feeding. We can't put him on the Atkins diet or on a treadmill," joked his frustrated father, Bernie Lange, a part-time news anchor at KKCO-TV in Grand Junction. "There is just something absurd about denying an infant."

Bernie and Kelli Lange tried to get insurance for their growing family with Rocky Mountain Health Plans when their current insurer raised their rates 40 percent after Alex was born. They filled out the paperwork and awaited approval, figuring their family is young and healthy. But the broker who was helping them find new insurance called Thursday with news that shocked them.

" 'Your baby is too fat,' she told me," Bernie said.

More at link

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_13530098

[armyowalgreens]

1. Insurance companies would rather let babies die than lose a buck.

[bbinacan]

8. They're actually a non-profit

if I'm not mistaken. It's a shame they don't exercise more lattitude.

[depakid]

2. These folks really are pushing the envelope

Arrogant fucks think they own Congress and can therefore give the finger to Americans of every stripe.

This is one more reason why single payer should NEVER have been taken off the table.

[debbierlus]

3. Insurance companies are leeches

[depakid]

11. Parasites is a more accurate term

They add NOTHING of value and do NOTHING to "produce health."

Indeed- they funnel billions away from the system to deny people healthcare.

Obama was a fool to embrace these sorts- when they're in fact the perfect bad guys to focus populist outrage and anger at (thus getting healthcare reform passed- and Republicans out of office).

[lib_wit_it]

10. Seems to me they *do* own Congress, which is *why* single payer was never on the table to be taken

off.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. That is literally stomach-turning. This is a crime.

My son was also breastfed only....until he was 6 months old. He was also chubby, and happy!! He slimmed down once h e started crawling and walking, and wore "slim" clothes for his entire childhood...and still does!!

This is more than an outrage!!

I hope they can get a lawyer and sue the pants off this company!!!

[pnwmom]

15. My husband was a blimp at six months, but he's been slender ever since age 2.

This is ridiculous.

[TheCowsCameHome]

20. Well, he must've slimmed down in order to attract you.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.........

[pnwmom]

33. Well, if he looked in his twenties exactly as he had at 6 months,

I doubt I'd have been as attracted to him.

;)

[Systematic Chaos]

5. Oh those motherfucking insurance asshole pieces of shit!

I guess they'd rather the parents put the kid on dairy-based formula so that there'd be a chance of some horrible auto-immune disease like type 1 diabetes, MS or maybe leukemia.

He's gonna be a college football star someday because his parents love him and are doing the right thing, and this is their reward?

Fucking bullshit.

[Ilsa]

6. The parents should contact legal advocate at La Leche League. I had

a ten+ lb baby at birth that weighed 15 lb at two months, fully breastfed. He's 12 now and has had maybe three courses of antibiotics in his entire life. Except for his autism, he is perfectly healthy. The insurance company is stupidly turning don a gift with this healthy baby in their risk pool. LLLI might be able to educate them.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

7. Why is a fat baby a problem? Are they suggesting it might have a heart attack?

That sounds pretty absurd. Or are they saying that it will always be fat, develop some disease like type-II diabetes many years from now, while still insured? What?

[pnwmom]

16. Height, too. He's at the 99% in height and they'll only accept to 95%.

They're nuts.

[MrScorpio]

9. I wish that this country would go all Switzerland of the insurance compnies

That would be good

[moc]

12. As I said in the other thread, it's very common for a breastfed baby to have a faster growth

trajectory than a formula fed baby in the first half of the first year. Typically, that curve flattens out after age six months, and breast fed babies usually end up leaner than formula fed babies. Indeed, long term, breast fed babies have a lower incidence of overweight and obesity.

My oldest nephew is a classic example. Fully breastfed, he doubled his birth weight by two months. He had so many rolls of fat, we nicknamed him "Buddha Baby" and "Michelin Tire Baby". He's now 14 years old and very lean.

[jmm]

13. Most of my family would've been denied insurance by this standard

Kids in my family tend to be born chubby and hit their milestones early. My parents were kind of shocked when I came along and wasn't as big as they expected although for years I was told I'd be between 5'10" and 6'1" (I'm 5'7") because of the way I was growing. I guess I would've been denied insurance too even though I've never broken or sprained anything and have only been on medication three times in my life.

[pnwmom]

14. His height and weight are proportionate, since they're in the same percentile.

And a breast-feeding baby weighs whatever it is supposed to. This is crap.

[debbierlus]

26. Exactly. Breastfed babies CAN'T be fat.

[TexasObserver]

17. Medicare for everyone but those who want private coverage.

[marmar]

18. Just when you think your outrage-o-meter has reached its end point.....

:argh:

[tnlefty]

19. This is outrageous, ridiculous and not so smart.

My younger 2 were breastfed and they were off the charts until they were 9 months old and then were in the one hundredth percentile for both height and weight for a while.

The middle one is smaller framed, around 6'2" and 150 at 16, the youngest at 14 has hit another growth spurt, is broad shouldered and is going to be a bigger man, he is 6'1" and 208. Neither one is what anyone could term as fat and they aren't sick very often. The youngest had a bout with H1N1 earlier and it lasted about 3 days and he was getting over it and ready to go back to school.

Stupid and short-sighted of this insurance company from my perspective.

[krabigirl]

21. Wow...my daughter was off the charts for height AND weight for her first year. ro

Sad that she could have been denied insurance for this. She is still off the charts for height, bu I guess 95% for weight? She's almost 3 but as tall as a 4-year-old.

[KamaAina]

22. Keep it up, guys! When you start denying fetuses based on ultrasounds,

the anti-choicers will swing around to our side, and you'll be royally screwn!!! :P

[debbierlus]

28. The anti-choice people stop caring about the person once born

So, they won't care whether the child has insurance.

Only the pregnancy to them is sacred.

[nolabear]

23. And do they suggest starving him? The effect could be disastrous!

I have studied infant development as part of my training for years. In order to lose weight a four month old must be, essentially, put on a diet. As much as we hate to say it up front, a diet is enforced starvation. The infant brain is still plastic and learning such basic things as trust that its needs will be met by an understanding and receptive caregiver, thus setting its expectations for its own ability to effect and connect with the world. Now, it's possible that the child would overcome the emotional and developmental effects of a few weeks of being hungry, of crying and having its hunger go unattended, of having a parent who has to listen to those cries without attending them (and this creates immense anxiety in any healthy parent) but it's also possible that it won't.

Because of an insurance company.

If there's sin in the world, this is it.

[Shell Beau]

24. You've got to be kidding me.

WTF?

Do they deny underweight babies as a pre-existing condition? How is this even legal?

[mnhtnbb]

25. Absurd. Simply absurd. What a dickhead Dr. Speedo is.

[Chulanowa]

27. But remember!

Obama wants to put bureaucrats between you and your doctor!

[SheilaT]

29. My two sons, totally breastfed

for the first six months, were at the bottom of the charts. Something like the fifth percentiles for them. I'm sure had the insurance companies been as awful back then they'd have been denied health coverage.

They are now 22 and 26, and both exactly 5'11". On the slender side, but exceptionally healthy.

[Yehonala]

30. THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE PLUMP!

Fat babies are healthy babies. They have years and years and years to slim down and gain muscle. I really am sick of these stupid, experimenting bureaucrats interfering in everything for a 'one size fits all' policy. When I have kids, I will put my fist through the face of any bureaucrat that leans over my child with his nose in the air looking for faults to avoid giving him coverage. I suppose if babies eat too much they should be killed to save food for birds?

[DaveinJapan]

31. I posted this very same topic on a right winger board, here are the opening replies...

***so pay out of your own pocket for the kids medical care, no one is stopping you...

***At least they still have a choice to try and get insurance through another provider or pay out of pocket. If the governement takes over the health care industry and a government bureaucrat denies you cover, then that is the end of the line.

***Oh. An anecdote. Instead of fixing the specific problem, lets destroy the best health care system in the world.



God, I hate those people.

[debbierlus]

34. Ignorant as the day is long.

[DaveinJapan]

36. That much is obvious. Oh, and I got banned too.

LMAO. Anyone know what "retread" is in internetspeak?

[snagglepuss]

32. "when he is ready for solid food, we'll start him on Slim-Fast"

jokes the parents. What a horrible thing parents of a new baby are being put thru. Its absurd beyond words.

Those insurers are effing criminals.

[debbierlus]

35. They don't want to cover anyone who might pose the slightest risk

Lest they have to pay a bill.

I can't believe their isn't a universal call for their demise.

[Ganja Ninja]

37. Lets see the right wing try and defend this.

:wtf:

[Orsino]

38. Let's check the license of the insurance rep who made the diagnosis. n/t

[xocet]

39. Contact

They claim that underwriting babies is a new thing and that they were oh-so-wrong in doing what they did, but it was a new process and it had some irregularities in it. There is a name directory at the company.

http://www.rmhp.org/

http://www.rmhp.org/pdf/RockyMountainLovesBabies.pdf

Kayla Arnesen, 800-843-0719

[SeattleGirl]

40. Oh, I get it! It's the newest reality show: "Top THIS!" wherein insurance

companies compete with each other to see who can come up with the scuzziest, sleaziest, most transparent reasons to deny someone coverage!! I guess the company with the most dead bodies in its wake and the most money in its pocket is the winner.

:grr:

[xocet]

41. Race to the bottom...

I agree. That is why I called them. I wanted to express to them exactly what their image now is.

[moriah]

42. 17 lbs at 25 inches long = 19.1 BMI. "Obesity"???

Is that insurance company fucking insane???

[Baikonour]

43. This is disgusting.

Can't wait for them to be on The Ed show tonight.