Babies Beware: Chubbiness and thinness are pre-existing conditions

October 22, 2:05 PMLiberal ExaminerJenny Kakasuleff

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Paul Hochfeld, an emergency room doctor from Corvallis, Ore., attends a rally hosted by The Mad As Hell Doctors tour to raise support for health care reform and a single payer system, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009 at Lafayette Park in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

While the month of August has been designated the climax of the anti-health care reform/pro-status quo movement, supporters of change and those who reject insurance profits at the expense of those who are sick have responded in-kind by focusing the spotlight on the tragedy that is our current health care system.

Though the public option appears to be a distant dream, reformers have been holding rallies, knocking on doors, and making phone calls to their neighbors to plead for their support. Furthermore, cases that illustrate the inadequate for-profit health insurance industry have been peppering our daily news consumption prompted by the underlying health care debate.

Last week, a healthy, 17 pound, 4 month-old boy named Alex Lange was denied health care by a Colorado insurer because the Center for Disease Control considers him too fat; remember he is a BABY. As the infant’s father points out, "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."

Rocky Mountain Health Plans has since “changed our policy, corrected our underwriting guidelines and are working to notify the parents of the infant who we earlier denied."

This week, another couple has claimed that their 2 year-old, 22 pound daughter Aislin was denied health coverage for being too thin. She suffers from a gag-reflex, which affects her eating, and United Health Care Golden Rule denied her coverage for her pre-existing condition of thinness.

These cases reflect a systematic problem existing within our current health care apparatus that has been ignored for too long. Notwithstanding the ideologues who genuinely believe that profit-making entities should be able to operate without any regulation or oversight, it should offend us as decent human beings that those who need health insurance the most are those who find it the most difficult to receive.

In the same way that we consider it unconscionable to leave a wounded person dying in the street without aiding them; we should be appalled that the interests of families and individuals have been prioritized behind those of for-profit insurers.

Copyright ©2009 Jenny Kakasuleff