Chubby Infant Denied Healthcare Insurance: His 'Obesity' is a Pre-existing Condition

By all accounts, little Alex Lange is a healthy and happy 4-month-old baby boy. He's in the 99th percentile for height and weight for infants his age, and growing faster than a weed. This last bit is a key point because, you see, health insurers won't cover babies above the 95th percentile -- no matter how healthy they might seem. The sad truth is that in the impersonal actuarial tables of profit-driven health insurance companies, little Alex is fat. That's why he's been turned down for health insurance by Rocky Mountain Health Plans -- for the preexisting condition of 'obesity.'

"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 in Grand Junction, CO. "There is just something absurd about denying an infant."

The Langes tried to get new family health insurance when their current plan raised their rates 40 percent. They figured it wouldn't be a problem because their family is young and healthy. But health insurance is not rational or compassionate. Instead of the acceptance they'd anticipated, the Langes received news that shocked them -- and pretty much everyone else whose heard it since.

Little Alex was too fat, and this pre-existing condition -- at four months old -- makes him too much of a financial risk for Rocky Mountain Health Plans. That's the cold, harsh reality of today's health insurance market: companies can turn down people with pre-existing conditions who aren't already covered in a group plan. Thankfully, some health insurance reform bills currently pending before Congress would prohibit such denials -- but not in time for little Alex.

Alex's doctor had never expressed any concerns about the baby the Lange's call their "happy little chunky monkey." Alex weighed a normal 8 pounds when he was born. Eating only breast milk, he has more than doubled his birth weight to 17 pounds and grown to 25 inches long.

"I'm not going to withhold food to get him down below that number of 95," Kelli Lange said. "I'm not going to have him screaming because he's hungry." Alex's 2-year-old brother had been a colicky baby who had trouble gaining weight, so the Lange's were reassured by Alex's appetite and are now understandably puzzled and confused by the health insurance company's policy. They plan to appeal Rocky Mountain's decision to deny Alex health insurance and if that doesn't work, they'll take their case to the Colorado Division of Insurance. Good for them -- and may the sheer absurdity of their situation make some politicians sit up and take notice. Are you listening, Mr. Baucus? Ms. Snowe?

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