An NBC news station is reporting that a 3-month old baby in Denver is not eligible for health care coverage because he’s simply too big. If you don’t know how it works babies and children are measured in terms of percentiles against the average. Little Alex Lange is in the 99th percentile which means he’s larger than 99 percent of other babies at this age. This is a metric that takes into account a combination of height and weight.
Rocky Mountain Health Plans claims this is standard practice. According to them it’s common across the country to deny health insurance to any child above the 95th percentile.
I found this a bit strange for a very simple personal reason. My son, who is now 14 years old, has been in the 125th percentile his entire life. He was a big baby, a big toddler, a big child and now a 6′-2″ 186-pound teenager. He’s in excellent health and the only issue he’s ever had was a couple of ear infections when he was around 4 years old. That’s it. Anyone who knows my son would never suggest that he looks crazily huge or anything even remotely close to it. He looks tall and now lanky as he grows into his height. Before he really shot up we had a slight concern about his weight but now that’s all gone. Nature took care of it perfectly.
This is just getting entirely out-of-hand. I’m left to wonder just how much more of these we’re going to accept in this country before people wake the hell up and insist on real change we can believe in and not the pussy-footing that’s been going on of late while millions suffer for it.
