17 Pound Baby Becomes Health Care Debate Centerpiece

By Kelly Turner on October 22nd, 2009

Alex Lange, a 4 month old baby from Colorado, was denied health insurance for being too fat. The insurance company denied coverage for the 17 pounds baby because his “obesity” is considered a pre-existing medical condition.

Alex’s parents are understandably frustrated. Dad Bernie Lange, a part-time news anchor at KKCO-TV in Grand Junction, said “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.”

Baby Alex has always been big, weighing in at 8 and a quarter pounds at birth, but his parents, Bernie and Kelli Lange, say he is considered a happy, healthy four-month-old baby by his pediatrician’s standards who has never mentioned any concerns over Alex’s weight.

Rocky Mountain Health Plans, the insurance company at the center of the controversy, claims the issue is that Alex’s size (he is 25 inches long) put him in the 99th percentile for weight; they refuse to insure anyone above the 95% percentile, no matter how healthy they may be.

Here’s my question: why is there an obesity scale for infants in the first place? Amniotic fluid and breast milk can hardly be considered an unhealthy diet and, to me, it seems for someone who has not even been on the planet a year yet, that the word “pre-existing” can hardly be used. Are these numbers even a true representation of risk? Alex is big, sure, but he is also healthy.

Graphs, charts, numbers and money: that’s what it always comes down to. A fat, happy, healthy baby is not enough to melt to cold heart of an insurance company- but public outcry and media coverage is. Rocky Mountain Health Plans has since changed their minds, and little Alex now has coverage.

Alex has become, however, a hefty (yes, pun) symbol for the health care reform debate. Insurance companies can turn people down that have pre-existing conditions who aren’t covered in a group health care plan- no matter how adorable and innocent the applicant is.

Is it a flawed system or a necessary, consistent ruler that like anything else that uses generalized statistics, will unfortunately leave an innocent few not measuring up?