Scales of Justice Tip in Favor of “Fat” Baby Denied Health Insurance

If there’s one thing I may love more than baby hats, it’s a chubby baby.  So color me sad to hear that this beautiful, chubby, four-month-old boy was denied health insurance for “being too fat.”

What IS it with people and this “too fat” nonsense?!

Alex Lange measures 25 inches and weighs 17 pounds, putting him in the 99th percentile for height and weight for babies his age.  Impressive, yes, but c’mon!  His parents were told insurance companies don’t take babies above the 95th percentile, no matter how healthy.  Um, okay.

His parents, needless to say, were shocked.

“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.  “There is just something absurd about denying an infant.”

The media agreed — and as soon as this story made national headlines, Rocky Mountain Health Plans immediately changed its tune and said — SURPRISE! — it will no longer consider obesity a “pre-existing condition” barring coverage for hefty infants.  Or, as I like to call our 22-lb. cat, “big-boned.”