Alex Lange Denied Health Care Coverage: "Your Baby Is Too Fat"

UPDATE: Rocky Mountain Health Plans has now said it will cover Alex Lange, a baby they previously refused to give health insurance because of his weight.

"A recent situation in which we denied coverage to a heavy, yet healthy, infant brought to our
attention a flaw in our underwriting system for approving infants," says Steve ErkenBrack, president and CEO, Rocky Mountain Health Plans. "Because we are a small company dedicated to the people of Colorado, we are pleased to be in a position to act quickly. We have changed our policy, corrected our underwriting guidelines and are working to notify the parents of the infant who we earlier denied."

Read the whole press release.

* * * * *

Four-month-old Alex Lange is described as a "happy, adorable, big baby." Yet he can't get health insurance.

Rocky Mountain Health Plans refuses to cover little Alex because he's too large. Grand Junction's NBC11News.com reports:

Because of his size, Baby Alex was turned down for health insurance, his height and weight put him in the 99th percentile according to CDC guidelines.

Kelli [his mother] says it's ridiculous, "It's frustrating, it's very frustrating."

Dr. Speedie at Rocky Mountain Health Plans says all babies are evaluated for insurance the same way. "In children it's based on a combination of height and weight."

The health insurance reform legislation moving through Congress would end this practice of denying coverage based on "pre-existing conditions" -- in Alex's case, "obesity."
The Denver Post has more:

"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.

UDPATE: Bernie, Kelli, and baby Alex will all appear on MSNBC's Ed Show on Monday evening.

Here's more coverage:

Comments

[RightsGuy]

Our fight for equal access to healthcare for all is about democracy, human rights, civil rights, and basic human decency. WE MUST JOIN TOGETHER TO FIGHT FOR OUR CIVIL RIGHTS AND BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS. Health care is a basic human right.

"Blue Cross of California, a subsidiary of Wellpoint, encouraged employees through performance evaluations to cancel the health insurance policies of individuals with expensive illnesses. . .one blue cross employee earned a perfect score of "5" for "exceptional performance" on an evaluation that noted the employee's role in dropping thousands of policyholders and avoiding nearly $10 million worth of medical care.

"Blue cross of California and two other insurers saved more than $300 million in medical claims by canceling more than 20,000 sick policyholders over a five-year period.”

Read the full article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-fisher/the-health-care-chamber-o_b_219564.html

[JenniferHoffman]

I absolutely agree with you, it is our right as taxpayers and financial supporters of this government to have health care. The US taxation system is deceptive, we think we pay less than Europeans but we actually pay the same or even more. Yet we receive far less in the way of benefits, including health care.

Why Americans listen to the propaganda of health insurance companies about 'government taking over health care' is beyond me. Right now, it is in the hands of health insurance companies and they approve or deny coverage based on their arbitrary, profit-driven rules. As a small business owner I have my own health insurance coverage and I know that it could be cancelled any day, for any reason and I have no recourse.

Last year I received a renewal asking for verification of my weight, I guess they wanted to ensure that I wasn't "too fat". If I had been, they probably would have cancelled my policy then I would have had to find something else. I welcome "government intervention" in the health care system, I am tired of being gouged by insurance companies. If we can spend trillions of dollars on two wars, we can spend some money on health care for Americans.

[Bettysdad]

Yeah, and the Reps say the govt will ration care.

[Aerows]

Translation of the insurance company's decision to insure the boy after all:

"We got a bunch of negative publicity, so we will insure him in order to keep from losing customers."

[Kalamama]

Ditto that Aerows.

[Angry23]

I look at this little girl's adorable face and want to cry. She reminds me of my daughters. I can't believe we live in a country that denies medical care to children. It's a revolting shame and I am so tired of it.

[naughtYmike]

Outrageous!

[billiej]

Again, Once Again, Here it goes ---- Why would anyone want to spend $100 dollars for a private-sector for-profit health insurance policy and have $20 to $30 go to the insurer, leaving as little as $70-80 of the original $100 for the folks who are going to provide health care, i.e. doctors, pharmacies and hospitals? The obvious answer is 'no one'. If there is true ‘controversy’ around health insurance, it's for very legitimate reasons attested by 'the public's' years and years of real-world experience with private-sector for-profit health insurance companies – private-sector for-profit health insurance companies deny coverage, resend coverage, bank profits without improving services, pay huge ‘bonuses’ to staff and CEOs for denying and resending coverage and for limiting treatments. In addition, 'the pubic' knows the ‘death panel’ stories are true - they're based on real-life incidents caused by the private-sector for-profit insurance industry, in which private-for-profit insurers (not ‘a government agency’) denies life-saving care to policyholders. This is just a recent example of a long-established practice. Not surprisingly - more than Enron, Citigroup, AIG, Health South, Health Frist (or First or what ever), 'the public' trusts the government to deliver health care. This is just one more example of why 'the public' feels that way.

[crazyv]

if the insurance companies covered everybody, paid every claim that we think is fair (whoever "we" is) would the executives or shareholders of these companies earn less money? Nope all that would happen is that we would end up paying more in premiums. Perhaps in time as premiums go high enough to drive everybody into being uninsured the executives and shareholders might feel some pain but not until then.

So lets stop pretending that problem can be solved through "insurance reform" . Health care costs so much because we use so much of it. The answer if we want to pay less is to be able to figure out what works and what doesn't and what is cost effective and what isn't. If we have system that demands that we pay for Viagara and fertility treatment (for example) for some people expect that some others including underweight and overweight children will denied insurance.

Calling the insurance companies evil is like calling a shark evil. They are what they and the essence of insurance is exclusion otherwise known as underwriting. Creating a market place which requires no underwriting (which is essentially what requiring coverage for everybody without regard to sex or pre-existing conditions is) essentially converts insurance companies into marketing companies and allows for profit with no risk. It is not surprising that a President who has provided vast amounts to Wall Street would come up with a similar give away to insurance companies.

[Kalamama]

crazyv

Your screen name is right on spot!

Your first remark that if insurance companies covered everybody and paid every claim that we think is fair. That is being addressed in Healthcare Reform ( not called insurance reform ).
If said insurance company wanted to stay in business, they would be required to cover anyone paying the premium and finally pay every claim that they deny, deny, deny.
Did you NOT READ the story before you attempted to speak?
The execs and/or shareholders would be forced to an acceptable wage. Myself?? I think over 400 % in profit is disgusting.

Your second statement is so far gone that all I can is wow..you need to get a clue.Or is it that maybe you want them to pay for your viagara and not insure innocent babies who may be born a little large or a little small. Much like your mind is small.

Your third statement shows that not only are you clueless,but likely employed by an insurance company. Requiring coverage for everybody without regard to sex or pre-existing conditions creates a marketplace with no underwriting? You really need to seek help asap.
Your very lasy sentance is of course wrong....It was your President, the shrub that provided vast amounts of money with no oversight and no regulation.

You really sound like such a stand up person, btw...how do you sleep at night?

[Kalamama]

crazyv

So...In short, your ok with 45,000 people dying every year?

My last longer reply got scrubbed

[macday]

Your screen name should be insanity it fits for your rant

[aonemandog]

Meanwhile our Congressmen and Senators sit there wringing their hands worrying about how single payer would put private insurance companies out of business; and Obama waits "for the right time" to step into the fray. Americans should demand an end to medical-coverage-for-profit and force the whole lot of them out of business or, at least, into a non-profit business model. If it works for every other country, it will work here; although some CEOs and politicians will be a little less rich! This whole mess is approaching such a state of ridiculousness that it would be funny.....except that they are killing us all..., one coverage denial at a time....

[exmate]

The CEOs and top management are entitled to make the big bucks because they worked hard. in order to do that they need to deny coverage whenever they can.

[Jennifer Pohl]

This is even crazier than pregnancy, spousal abuse, simple yeast infections and acne all being consider "pre-existing" conditions and used as an excuse to deny insurance.

So insurance companies discriminate against babies, and not just women? Breast fed babies gain at a different rate, and are often healthier and bigger. Breast feeding is the best health insurance for goodness sakes! Breast millk antibodies protect babies, It is one of the reason why you nurse a baby more when it has a cold. It even fights e. coli.

I worry about how many little ones have been affected by this. No wonder the US has the worst infant mortality rate in the modern world. With health care reform this will change.

[Pem3]

Well it is nice that they have reviewed their policies and underwriting practices giving them coverage. Wonder if they would have done this with out all of the coverage though.

[quiviran]

Dr Speedie would have prevailed. Sunlight is a very effective disinfectant. The just doesn't seem to be enough to go around. (Witness the Main Stream Medias lack of attention to the story and hundreds of others like it)

[AtomicallyLiberal]

I don't get it... Supposedly, they have a not-for-profit insurer. Why do they act the same way as the for profit companies?

[DeeDubya]

Yea, best deny coverage to all those fat babies. Cut off the anorexic ones, too.

The CEO needs a fifth Bentley and a 9th summer home in France.

[staticnoise]

This is crap, sorry. Why is the box to post to facebook automatically ticked off? More often than not my comments here wouldn't fit into my facebook page, and make any sense to others if they ever would I'm perfectly capable of ticking off the box myself. I can't find where in my preferences to change this action.

[Treehuggindirtworshiper]

Go to your page and click on settings. Click on linked accounts and you can prevent that from happening.

[ChaiKat]

Yeah, if youru lucky. I've done that 4 times already and it still tries to connect me.

[Mama Bee]

Once again, the insurance industry finds another way to be inhuman.

I'm not a robust healthy breast fed baby. Instead, I am a cancer survivor, and I hope to continue my survival. Recently at my yearly physical, my physician thought it advisable to have a breast MRI because of some pain I had been experiencing in the area where my left breast used to be. The insurance company, Blue Cross and Blue Shiled of Kansas City denied the request, as deemed by their board as medically unnecessary.

What happens six months from now if there is a recurrence and then the cancer is now in an advance stage? Pay my family death benefits? Think not!

SHAME ON ALL INSURERS WHO DENY, DENY, DENY.

[AtomicallyLiberal]

Isn't it odd the not-for-profit insurers act the same way for profit ones do?