Heavy Infant Denied Health Insurance

by Amy Hatch (Subscribe to Amy Hatch's posts) Oct 13th 2009 9:07PM

Categories: Babies, Safety, Eating & Nutrition, Development, In The News, Weird But True, Breast-Feeding

4-month-old Alex weighs in at 17 pounds. Credit: Bernie Lange

A 4-month-old baby boy whose weight is in the 99th percentile is being denied health insurance because he is "obese."

Alex Lange weighed 8 and 1/4 pounds when he was born, but on a diet of breast milk this healthy baby now weights about 17 pounds and is 25-inches long, which puts him in the 99th percentile for both height and weight.

And for that reason alone he is being denied health insurance, according to The Denver Post. Alex's parents, Bernie and Kelli Lange, sought a new health insurance carrier when their current plan's price increased by 40 percent. They never expected that their healthy family would be denied because of Alex's size.

Bernie Lange, a a part-time news anchor at KKCO-TV in Grand Junction, Colo., told the newspaper that the broker they hired to help them find a new carrier delivered some shocking news.

"'Your baby is too fat,' she told me," the dad said.The insurance company told the family that it does not cover babies who are 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," Lange told the Post. "There is just something absurd about denying an infant."

Mom Kelli agrees, and said she would never deny her son food. "I'm not going to withhold food to get him down below that number of 95," she said. "I'm not going to have him screaming because he's hungry."

The Langes said they plan to appeal the decision, and if that doesn't work they will take their case to the Colorado Division of Insurance.

Would your child be denied health insurance under these guidelines?

Related: Mother Fired for Pumping on the Job

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Comments (15)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Elizabeth 10-13-2009 @ 9:51PM

It's these kinds of stories that remind me why we need healthcare reform. Honestly, to me, the child in the picture does not look unhealthy in any way. He looks like a normal baby, maybe even cuter because of his little chubby cheeks and little round tummy. But to say that he is uninsurable because of them? How awful. And if the parents were to cut his feedings down, I'm sure the government would say that they are neglecting him. Maybe the doctors need to reevaluate what healthy baby growth is and isn't. Since it seems that bringing stories like this to the media's attention often changes the insurance company's mind, I hope that's the case with this family. Good luck.

sierre 10-14-2009 @ 12:17AM

Thank you, Elizabeth, for your comment. I wish everyone appreciated the importance of providing the basic human right of health protection and conservation to all human beings. Anyone who believes that the health insurance is a luxury rather than an inherent right is a selfish and evil human being ( and most likely a Republican or just depravedly stupid) who deserves nothing more than to burn in hell.

Trisha 10-14-2009 @ 1:44AM

Hmmm, I just did a little digging, my now 19 month old was a big baby too.
He was actually 17.3 lbs at his 4 month check up. And 26 inches.
BUT, according the growth charts, for boys, that put him in the 86th percentile. Not the 99th.
Something is amiss with this story or their growth charts.

SKL 10-14-2009 @ 1:55AM

You are leaving out the part of the story where the company admitted they made a mistake and they are correcting it.

Reform may be needed with respect to covering an individual who has been continuously covered but needs to change to a new insurance company for some reason. My ex-business partner gave birth to a special-needs child while on her husband's COBRA insurance. When COBRA ran out, she had to buy insurance through our company, which was expensive because we had only three people to average out the pre-existing condition. This is not a typical situation, as most groups are so large that the occasional pre-existing condition doesn't make that much difference. Also, she should have gotten off COBRA and onto our insurance before the baby was born, and she knows it; because then, she would not have had a high-risk rating. Ultimately, (a) she was able to buy affordable insurance, though more expensive than average; (b) the state paid for all of the kid's special needs care anyway; and (c) when her husband got a new job, she got on his subsidized insurance and we got re-rated for lower premiums. But there is a question whether it was equitable for her to have to pay more to switch insurance, given that if she'd stayed on the same insurance she'd been on before, she would not have gotten any hassle about the baby's condition. I could see charging a surcharge for being previously uninsured, though.

This is an area that needs some work, but it sure doesn't mean I want the government running the health "insurance" industry.

And to sierre, no, having health care insurance is not a luxury nor a right. It is a responsibility, just like looking both ways before you cross the street. If you are blind, I will support a movement to subsidize your guide dog, but if you can see, you are on your own.

Gena 10-14-2009 @ 4:30PM

SKL, you have made intersting comments in the past, some I agree with and some I don't. This is one occasion that I do not agree.

Health insurance is a responsibility, yes, but the insurance industry, along with pharmaceutical companies and managed healthcare as a whole has made it almost impossible for a great number of people to live up to that obligation. The way Americans live their lives, our diet, exercise, work, multimedia (i.e. tv, internet, etc) habits that have been droned into our consciousness as our "culture" has made us all pay dearly in the long run for decent health and well-being. Environmental pollution, man-made materials, genetically modified food, ridiculous allergies, cancers, high-stress lifestyles, have all come to a head and for the first time, our children's life expectancy is actually lower than ours. Reforming health care, and thus implementing measures to support our fellow citizens regardless of health, addresses this issue and so much more.

trisha 10-14-2009 @ 2:09AM

The insurance agency changed their policy.
(I can't add the link, spam control.) Go to denverpost dot com/ci_13547963

Katie 10-14-2009 @ 9:11AM

That is just ridiculous of the insurance company. My son was off the chart at 4 months: 19lbs. 11oz. 27 inches. My son is 4 now and by no means obese. He is skinnier then ever. Some kids are just big. My daughter is at 95%ile at 18 months. Mind you, their father is 6 ft. tall. He is by no means obese.

isisaquaria 10-14-2009 @ 10:32AM

My seven yr old does not not even weigh 35 lbs. And the two yr old twins, not even 20 lbs so based off my own children (regardless of genetic profile) this young man seems large---------

But, I still do not think the insurance was right. I hope it was a mistake as reported.

anonymous 10-14-2009 @ 5:54PM

Your comment is just ignorant... Just because you have smaller children doesn't mean you have an accurate view of what constitutes as large. Would it make sense for me to say that since your seven year old weighs the same amount as my four year old that your child is malnourished? No, it wouldn't. You really should have thought about your post before you added it.

wasabi 10-14-2009 @ 8:42PM

isisaquaria, your comment is really ignorant. Did you fully breastfeed all your children? Did you know that breastfeed babies, especially in the first 6th month, usually gain a lot better than formula feed babies? I am 5'6 and 105lbs and my husband is 5'11 and 165lbs. Our baby was born at 8lbs, was 11lbs by the end of one month and definitely in the 90th percentile for the 1st 6 months of his life because he was fully breastfed. After that, he has now dropped to the bottom 10th percentile because between 6mth and 1yr babies will usually return to their genetic background in terms of height and weight. There is a percentile chart because it means there are babies that weight in the entire range of the chart. If you are at the 99th percentile weight chart, it means 1% of babies weight that much. On any given day 10,657 babies are born so does that mean over 100 babies are really obese? It just means they come in different sizes. At 4 months it is too early to tell medically if a baby is unhealthily large. I am just happy I am not American.

anonymous 10-14-2009 @ 5:54PM

Sierre - those of us that have health benefits work hard to pay for them. We don't think they're a luxury or a right. It's something we do to be responsible for ourselves and our health. Why such a need to make this a political discussion?

Emily 10-15-2009 @ 1:58PM

If we end up with a one-payor system like Canada or the U.K., then the government will be the one deciding that this baby shouldn't be covered rather than a private insurance company that must meet the expectations of its insureds or it lose its insured's business. And with people like Eric Holder and Cass Sunstein in charge under the current administration, the government will probably just decide it's better to let overweight people die. Holder's comment specifically was, “All the children who are born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to a desired level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the death of grown persons.”

And even if one were to argue that health care is a right, since when does the government fund rights? We all have the right to free speech. Does that mean the government should provide us with an auditorium and a microphone?

Heather 10-16-2009 @ 9:28PM

It is good that they are correcting it but say he was in the 99th percentile? Do they have the right to deny him coverage.

So do all you Obama haters think that is a good idea, and heath care is working just great? Or do you now see the point of many who think these insurance companies need to be reigned in? If you don't agree with Obama then start making suggestions to the governemet about ideas that will stop this nonsense.

Emily 10-19-2009 @ 10:06AM

Heather - why don't you read the comments above yours to find out what the Obama haters think. No, we do not think the current health care system is working just great, and we are even more concerned with the failure of it once the government takes over. And many have proposed better options than what Congress is forcing on us, but because it's a political issue, those that are not in power are being ignored.

If you think the reform bill is such a great idea, why don't you explain why the same people who are drafting it have voted to not be covered by it. Perhaps it's because they want to keep their quality health insurance. And guess who provides it? A private insurance company.

concerned 12-29-2009 @ 8:36PM

It is important to note that while exclusively breastfed babies gain more weight in the first 6 months, they are less likely to suffer from childhood or adult obesity. Breastfed babies gain more because breastmilk is age appropriate and contains higher percentages of protein and fat than formula. Increased weight gain is also attributed to breastmilk being digested and it's nutrients absorbed more efficiently and effectively than formula, which results in an increased frequency of feedings. This is because newborns stomachs are very small and can only hold small amounts of milk at a time. U.S. infant growth charts are based on a formula fed population, because in the U.S. only 33% of babies are exclusively breastfed through 3 months of age and only 13.6% are exclusively breastfed through 6 months of age. The World Health Organization (WHO) offers growth charts for infants who are exclusively breastfed. Parents whose children are exclusively breastfed can request that their health care provider use the WHO charts to evaluate their child's growth. According to the WHO chart, this beautiful baby would have only been in the 70th percentile.

While health care in the U.S. is certainly a very important topic and I can see how this article could have highlighted the need to reform the system, I am much more concerned by the fact that the healthy and natural growth of human babies when exclusively fed the food which was produced specifically to meet their chronological and genetic needs is so shocking that it becomes news. I am concerned that our society has forgotten that human beings are mammals, meaning we possess mammary glands and our young thrive best on the product of those mammary glands, mother's milk.