Obese Baby denied insurance
Health insurance companies have been known for excluding people with health problems. In a business perspective that is a smart approach to running a business. Accepting all people with expensive health care needs can lead to the foreclosure of the business. In a personal perspective it seems cruel to exclude the people who need health care the most. Someone with a serious disease should not need to worry about how they are going to pay for their health care.
A recent story stirs up controversy on how much power insurance companies should have in denying coverage. A four month old baby, Alex Lange, has been denied health care because he is obese. Rocky Mountain Health Care has denied the 17 pound, 25 inch baby. He is being considered a high risk patient because of his obesity. His parents are shocked and upset. Alex’s father says “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. There is just something absurd about denying an infant."
Bernie and Kelli Lange, the baby's parents have been informed that babies above the 95 percentile for height and weight are not accepted by health insurance companies. Their baby is in the 99th percentile. Doctor Doug Speedie, the medical director at Rocky Mountain Health Care commented, “your weight is not an absolute determinate of health. Unfortunately when we try to sell people insurance, a number has to be used as a cutoff."
The fact that a baby was denied insurance because of his weight seems ridiculous. There was no indication that the baby was unhealthy. I understand that healthcare is a business but it seems like the cut offs are quite extreme. I agree with Bernie Lange that there is not much that can be done to control a baby’s weight. I think stories similar to these are becoming more and more visible due to the healthcare debates.
Sources
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I think that the obesity rule against babies went too far. Babies should be guarenteed insurance no matter what, someone needs to put a stop to that.
ReplyDeleteWow, thats so sad... how can they reject a baby! I guess if you look in the point of view of the health insurance people though then you could understand that they don't want to take any chances. But still its not like the parents are going to stare their baby! He is only 4 months so its not like he can do much exercise yet so its really unfair of them to do that to him.
ReplyDeleteThat's crazy... They should move to canada where health insurance is free... Maybe even France for it's number one health care but as of right now I'm disappointed in the government for not taking action in this case.
ReplyDeleteThis baby is just too cute to be denied health insurance. And he is a baby, babies gain weight, but it doesn't mean they are unhealthy.
ReplyDeleteWow that is really sad. Because how are they going to do that to a 4 month year old baby. He's only 4 months he wont really be starting with the exercise like a 1 year old would. But still.. its sad.
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ReplyDeleteI think it is sad that babies are being denied health insurance. Also that is not fair to the baby for not having health insurance because he is to fat.
ReplyDeleteA 1 year old gets denied coverage for something like this. Just because they are a little overweight for their age. I don't blame the parents for being upset when they find out about this.
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ReplyDeleteExcellent choice for an article. You had some minor grammar problems, otherwise it is well written and summarized. You also had quite a lot of feedback!
ReplyDeleteI want to know how the baby got so fat if it was just breastfeeding?
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commented “Your weight is not an absolute determinate of health. Unfortunately when we try to sell people insurance, a number has to be used as a cutoff."--comma after commented and YOUR does not need to be capitalized.
the Bernie Lange--no "the" is needed