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Monday, October 12, 2009

UPDATE: Rocky Mountain Health Plans to Cover Heavy Babies

[My Commentary: This is just one example of the bureaucracy that happens every day that denies Health Insurance to thousands of Americans, and now i have heard that the insurance companies have stabbed the white house in the back. Are we going to stand and take this I hope not,I do not know what to do, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.....]

Discovery of Flaw in System Leads to Policy Change
(GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.) – Today, Rocky Mountain Health Plans has made a company wide policy change and will now provide health plan coverage for healthy infants, regardless of their weight.
“A recent situation in which we denied coverage to a heavy, yet healthy, infant brought to our attention a flaw in our underwriting system for approving infants,” says Steve Erken Brack, president and CEO, Rocky Mountain Health Plans. “Because we are a small company dedicated to the people of Colorado, we are pleased to be in a position to act quickly. We have changed our policy, corrected our underwriting guidelines and are working to notify the parents of the infant who we earlier denied.”
The trend in health care has been for more and more families with small children to seek individual coverage for their children from health insurers. Rocky Mountain Health Plans has also been seeing this trend. Underwriting for this age group is a relatively new process.
“We are part of the Colorado community too and that includes healthy babies. Rocky Mountain has been serving this community for more than 35 years and our collaborative, community approach to health care is well documented. We are constantly working on new, innovative ways to deliver quality, affordable health plans that are designed for the people of Colorado.
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a "happy, adorable, big baby." denied health insurance for being overweight

Four-month-old Alex Lange is described as a "happy, adorable, big baby." Yet he can't get health insurance.

Rocky Mountain Health Plans refuses to cover little Alex because he's too large. Grand Junction's NBC11News.com reports.

Because of his size, Baby Alex was turned down for health insurance, his height and weight put him in the 99th percentile according to CDC guidelines.


Kelli [his mother] says it's ridiculous, "It's frustrating, it's very frustrating."

Dr. Speedie at Rocky Mountain Health Plans says all babies are evaluated for insurance the same way. "In children it's based on a combination of height and weight."

The health insurance reform legislation moving through Congress would end this practice of denying coverage based on "pre-existing conditions" -- in Alex's case, "obesity."
The Denver Post has more:

"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 at KKCO-TV in Grand Junction. "There is just something absurd about denying an infant."


Bernie and Kelli Lange tried to get insurance for their growing family with Rocky Mountain Health Plans when their current insurer raised their rates 40 percent after Alex was born. They filled out the paperwork and awaited approval, figuring their family is young and healthy. But the broker who was helping them find new insurance called Thursday with news that shocked them.

"'Your baby is too fat,' she told me," Bernie said.

UDPATE: Bernie, Kelli, and baby Alex will all appear on MSNBC's Ed Show on Monday evening.