Alex Lange is a chubby, dimpled, healthy and happy 4-month-old.
But in the cold, calculating numbered charts of insurance companies, he is fat. That’s why he is being turned down for health insurance. And that’s why he is a weighty symbol of a problem in the health care reform debate.
Insurance companies can turn down people with pre-existing conditions who aren’t covered in a group health care plan.
Alex’s pre-existing condition — “obesity” — makes him a financial risk. Health insurance reform measures are trying to do away with such denials that come from a process called “underwriting.”
“If health care reform occurs, underwriting will go away. We do it because everybody else in the industry does it,” said Dr. Doug Speedie, medical director at Rocky Mountain Health Plans, the company that turned down Alex.
By the numbers, Alex is in the 99th percentile for height and weight for babies his age. Insurers don’t take babies 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,” 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.”
Update: Insurer Rocky Mountain Health Plans has relented and will now offer insurance to cover Alex Lange.
“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 ErkenBrack, 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.”
From Wikipedia:
London suffered great fires in 798, 982, 989, and above all in 1666 (Great Fire of London). The Great Fire of 1666 started in a baker’s shop on Pudding Lane, consumed about two square miles (5 km²) of the city, leaving tens of thousands homeless. Prior to this fire, London had no organized fire protection system. Afterwards, insurance companies formed private fire brigades to protect their clients’ property. Insurance brigades would only fight fires at buildings the company insured. These buildings were identified by fire insurance marks.
# 18 pedro
“…then of course babies have the right to live.”
I am glad we can agree; babies do, have a right to life!!!!!
They threaten huge rate hikes now. Threaten to seize their assets for national security and nationalize the sob’s. I’ve lost all faith in American capitalism. They push the greed envelope too far. There was a time people took pride in owning stock in decent firms. Now the damn day traders and market managers are no better than pirates. I lost my share also through Bears Stearns. The stock holders needs responsibility for holdings, if not direct liability.
Thank you, tcc3, for your reference to fire marks. Fire marks in the US were used mostly in the 1800s.
Other institutions of that era, notably police, often possessed a similar mercenary streak.
Mr. Fusion the purely military nature of “companies” is certainly possible. Previously firefighting groups were mostly referred to as societies, corps or brigades. I think the term company became associated with firefighters around the time that fire insurance started paying rewards for their specific properties. Could be wrong on that though.
My point is that healthcare is a public utility the same as police and fire.
There are many areas where costs can be driven out of healthcare(some listed in previous post).
As the incentives are set up now what is driven out is healthcare. Every treatment that can be shirked, delayed or denied is money on the profit line. Increasing profitability is not just a fuzzy goal, it is the legal obligation of a corporate officer.
The system itself is ghastly.
#72, Chris,
Very true.
Instead of comparing it to emergency services, I would more compare health care to our physical infrastructure. We all need our electric, gas, water, sewage, roadways, schools, traffic lights, and what have you. Health care is in the same category.
While we can do without any of those listed, if we go without for long, we will, as a society, collapse. Going without health care in the short term is usually only an inconvenience, over the long term it is usually fatal.
#64, You don’t even know what a wife is so I find it funny you can comment on a man’s wife.
If you did know, you would know why you would sacrifice other to save her.
#74–So, LIEBERTY loser==You have brayed that you would sacrifice 10 innocent people to save your wife, but how many other innocent people would you allow to be killed in order to save your wife? How many “other people” is your wife worth? NUMBER PLEASE!!
Hey Alfie==glad to see you peruse the opposition. You just need to pay attention now.
No one says it so I “might” be wrong, but when Medicare denies a claim, that means the patients got the care but doesn’t have to pay and the provider gets stiffed.
In private insurance cases, when the ins co doesn’t pay, then typically the patient does.
So==absent more info/confirmation==I’d say MediCare is not denying enough claims given the biggest reason to deny is lack of documented necessity===aka FRAUD, WASTE, AND ABUSE!!!!
But, I’m not expert==just taking a guess.
Not to sure what is going on. The kid may have serious health issue or he may just be super heavy framed.
I’ve seen a few of those.
#51 bobbo
I think most of my reply on hypotheticals yesterday was intellectual masturbation. Well spotted Liberty Lover!
Bobbo said..
“I wonder what the hypothetical fairly engaged really teaches us?”
A hypothetical question fairly engaged is just a thought experiment.
For example Einstein used the hypothetical ‘what would happen if I traveled on a beam of light?’ And doing so led to general relativity. That was kinda handy.
So to go back to the original statement – it can teach us a lot.
That said just as with real experiments, you can have useless thought experiments, and sometimes that may not be totally apparent at the outset.
#79–freddy==you say: “A hypothetical question fairly engaged is just a thought experiment.” /// Thats rather dismissive of the FULL RANGE of questions that hypotheticals can address. What is “just” if you are really thinking?
Now, I think it is rare that one is put into a position of having the choice of killing your wife or 10 other people, so that kind of hypothetical may seem to lack merit ((I disagree)) compared to Einsteins thought experiments, compared to “If I had no health insurance would I want my wife cared for if she got sick? And if so, how can I justify not helping someone else in the same situation thru a national single payer system.”
No, a masturbater will find the excuse to do so regardless of subject matter just as thinkers will do the same with their habit.
10 people vs wife: How do I define our common humanity of which I am a part? Nothing vague. Nothing left out of the hypothetical.
#76, Alphie,
Your link to a “blog” works. That was the good news. The link inside that “blog” to verify their numbers didn’t. It appears they just pulled them out of their rectums.
So here, read these numbers. In California, the California Nurses Ass. did a study and found 22% of patients were denied coverage.
#80 bobbo
You’re going to pick up on ‘just’? I think its fair to just drop the just and all is fine. And I don’t see what class/es of hypothetical I’m excluding by the observation.
’10 people vs wife: How do I define our common humanity of which I am a part? Nothing vague. Nothing left out of the hypothetical.’
Yeah, I don’t think that works very well. It’s all a bit nebulous, certainly for they way I think. To answer it I don’t know where to start, where as with the original hypothetical, I could imagine, and come to some conclusions.
Perhaps that’s just me.
Bobbo,
No, a masturbater will find the excuse to do so regardless of subject matter just as thinkers will do the same with their habit.
10 people vs wife: How do I define our common humanity of which I am a part? …
I’m enjoying the intelligent discourse between you and Freddy.
Loser’s aim is to demonstrate that anyone choosing their wife over the lives of ten strangers is selfish. Anyone choosing the ten strangers over their wife is heartless. Somehow this will make anyone succumbing look inferior to Loser himself. The true answer is the question “why are we asking who lives anyway?”
As I have said before, this is the tact of an immature person. The profile painted by other posts demonstrate a profound lack of life experience and social empathy. This lack of social empathy leads me to another track I think your wisdom might want to explore. Liebertarians are psychopaths.
#83–Fusion==you reveal me completely. I’m assuming at some number LIEBERTARIAN LOSER IDIOT will relent and finally decide that he would choose the lives of 10 Million people over that of his wife. THEN we work down to find the self-centered factor. Even one to one is self centered, so there is a bit of a trick there, so somewhere along the dialectic, we have to switch to other comparisons like 12 baby chickens vs your wife. I’m looking forward to a fun long line of unanswered posts. Hah, hah.
#82–freddy===So, we are at a definitional/perceptual standoff? I say ALL hypotheticals contain sufficient information to warrant an honest answer. Especially the one at hand only for instance. YOU say the current hypo like many others need more facts. I think this demonstrates certain qualities of the mind considering the issue. I think its “comfort with ambiguity” but probably other things as well. After all==every circumstance is life is a hypothetical with any number of unknowns, yet we persevere?
Now Pedro. Say—–how many conquistadores/international oil heads would you kill to save one indigenous native?
#84 bobbo
‘I say ALL hypotheticals contain sufficient information to warrant an honest answer.’
Okay perhaps I misunderstood – I read the question
‘“I wonder what the hypothetical fairly engaged really teaches us?’
As rhetorical – the point I thought you were making is not much.
‘YOU say the current hypo like many others need more facts.’
That’s not to say I think its uninteresting or unanswerable. I did previously give an honest answer which was not (as Liberty Lover tried to impose) a yes/no answer.
Part of my answer was just that I couldn’t answer yes/no without more context.
‘After all==every circumstance is life is a hypothetical with any number of unknowns, yet we persevere?’
Agreed.
I’m certainly not arguing for there to be no unknowns to answer. Just if pushed to only provide a yes/no answer on that hypo, without a few less unknowns personally I am unwilling to commit to either.
Moreover I think it fair to argue if you can answer yes/no to that hypo as it stands you aren’t putting much of a thought process into it, because it’s easy to introduce ‘knowns’ that would change any reasonable persons answers.
And THAT is the crux of Liberty Lovers use of the hypo I believe. By committing to yes/no it is trivial to display the answers ‘wrongness’ – by throwing in some knowns.
To clarify the last point – I should say, that Liberty Lovers use of the hypo and requiring a yes/no answer, he/she would use it in the following way….
If it was the ‘right’ answer in his/her mind, he/she can use it to ‘prove’ presumably his/her punchline (presumably about how unselfish and generous he/she is, or conversely how selfish I am etc).
Point is a yes/no answer to the hypo doesn’t provide a logical foundation to prove anything, as the answer is inherently fragile as the question is weak, as it can be trivially turned on its head, by an additional known.
#87–freddt==can’t you see you are WRONG by your own analysis/experience? YOU can answer the hypo, you just don’t want to because you see it as a trap. But when LIEBERTARIAN Loser Idiot then springs on you with additional “facts” to push your answer one way or the other, he is making up a different hypothetical or making an independent assessment worthy of consideration, or whatever–completely separate from your ability to answer a complete hypothetical.
Jean Paul Sartre: if you answer you would save your wife, then as LLL is hypothetically posed to say: you are being selfish==and we all are to various degrees–a good subject for hypotheticals to tease out of us. If you choose to save the 10, then LLL is hypothetically posed to say: you are being heartless==and I would disagree thinking just the opposite. My own answer would be to not choose putting the burden of who lives/dies on the creator of the hypothetical.
Now, how is the above not putting “thought” into the hypothetical? And if it is, what prevents you from putting thought into it?
No, your own posts shows the value of hypotheticals as you wrestle to avoid their import. I say: grab hypotheticals and revel in them. They are portals to alternate universes. Enjoy the voyage.
#89 bobbo
‘My own answer would be to not choose putting the burden of who lives/dies on the creator of the hypothetical.’
Right – but you didn’t answer the hypo as posed by Liberty Lover, but your own that allows a non yes/no answer.
My answer was without further context, the yes/no answer is meaningless.
Neither answer the specific hypo – as neither are yes no answers.
‘My own answer would be to not choose putting the burden of who lives/dies on the creator of the hypothetical.’
Agreed. I’ve been arguing for their value in general.
But like experiments all hypos are not equal. And this specific one _with a yes/no_ answer, is pretty close to meaningless.
So, now I realize we must be talking at cross purposes.
What larks 😉
#90–freddy==well, if I “have to” answer as you say, I would say always save the higher number of people absent more facts. Easy to answer. In fairness, I think it shows I value all humans equally even if my own emotions might in a certain sense value my wife AS AN INDIVIDUAL more. Those values get highlighted in other hypotheticals.
Can you explain why you think a yes/no answer is meaningless? Jean Paul and I say the answer has the meaning you give it? A meaningless universe doesn’t remove meaning from your own hypothetical does it???? “I mean, therefore I am.”
#91 bobbo
It’s Liberty Lover who insists on a yes no answer.
I say meaningless – because it’s easy to make your rational ‘I value all humans equally’ break. We have no context, so lets say the 10 people are in excruciating pain and will die in the next 5 days. You’re wife is happy and healthy.
I would think that might change your answer.
What if the 10 ‘people’ are eggs which have just 1 second ago been fertilized. Would 10 people not taking the day after pill be worth the life of your ‘wife’.
Lets say the 10 people are members of murderous terrorist unit.
Lets say the terrorist unit is ‘fighting for American way of life’, and if they die 1 million US people will die.
And so on and on.
Are all lives truly ‘equal’?
That must be a pretty radical belief. Otherwise a minimum acceptable 10 to 1 enemies dead/US personal ratio would seem outrageous. And yet that’s what it is.
Anyways to the hypo, stick a few known’s in there, then you maybe can have a yes/no answer, and explain why, and it not be so easily undermined.
Hey, what’s with calling people retarded just because you don’t agree with what they have to say?
Hope you overcome your ignorance.
#92–freddy==well, I can only repeat what is contained in the thread above. Can I rephrase this in any particular way?
Low information hypotheticals have to do with your comfort level with ambiguity==leading to the personal insight that the “context” is YOU.
Strive for that context not to be devoid of sufficient facts.
#94 bobbo
I see what you’re saying it – but I’m not buying it.
For an argument to be rational (as in logical) it’s based on axioms which manipulated mechanistically (via logic) to reach a conclusion. That they can be manipulated mechanistically is vital – as it means it can be proved from first principals, via the axioms independently. That is other people on the forum reading it can see if the argument makes sense.
If the context is ‘me’ – then that is internal to other observers. Therefore there isn’t an argument to an outside observer, it a fundamental belief (ie its axiomatic).
And concretely you didn’t answer the question yes/no. You had to justify it by revealing some of your inner self – ie your belief ‘all people are equal’.
So would you agree if I answered _literally and just_, yes or no to that hypo, the answer is close to meaningless?
#96–freddy==its a hypothetical==not a gymnastics event. How you twist and twirl.
I’ve heard there are two types of people in this world: those who use their intellect to learn, and those who use it to avoid learning.
I’d rather engage my intellect and get what I can out of things like hypotheticals. Labeling something meaningless and gaining nothing from the experience is the empty game, it leads to not accepting direct answers and all kinds of silliness.
As I stated, I think the hypo does stand on its own because I am willing to engage it. If you remain unwilling to engage it then the hypothetical has done its job. Perhaps not as originally designed, but ain’t that life?
#97 bobbo
Pfft. Well in the end a communication fail then.
Happy to learn + did by the experience.
I’m happy to engage in hypotheticals. I was arguing that hypos are generally great things. Not only that but I did previously answer the question, to at least to equal quality to your own. That is I didn’t answer the question I answered a different question.
From where I’m sitting we aren’t talking about the hypothetical, but the larger question of hypotheticals in general. So I haven’t bothered to reanswer the original with context (such as an internal belief of the like of ‘all people are equal’).
For what it’s worth your answer given no other context, is as good as I’ve heard. But it’s hardly iron clad, or hugely insightful – for the reasons I outlined.
So, now we are quibbling, yes quibbling, over a pedantic point of whether the original hypo was meaningless of not. Pedantically I won’t say it is. Pedantically you won’t say if answering literally ‘yes/no’ to the question is or isn’t.
Well aren’t we a couple of pedants.
Which is a rather dull and uninteresting place to end up. Still the journey made it all worth while.
So for that I thank you.
Oh, and if your apparent frustration is that I didn’t engage in the original hypo, then I can humor you with that answer.
So if no special caveats on the people, and my wife etc. And I can either save my wife, and people will die or they live and she dies. Then all else being equal, to me, truthfully their lives are not directly equal to my own wifes life. Why? Because she’s my wife.
Which leads to how many lives is her life worth? 10 seems too many, 1 too few.
I know that’s not politically correct. And that is really an emotional, not a rational answer.
But there it is.
#99–Freddy–hah, hah. Seems this hypothetical is opening up moral questions for you that you don’t have an answer for? From one to ten? You also seem to flip/flop alot.
So, is a hypothetical that measures the value in other humans live to you of your wife cannot be specifically answered, how can that not be “insightful?”
I think it is “most important” to learn to answer a hypothetical within its own terms and then go on to the assumptions and cautions that such a limited response must stimulate.
Bigger questions are always more interesting than smaller questions. That doesn’t make the smaller ones invalid, and not even devalued by comparison. No, small hypo’s are valued because they lead us to the larger hypo’s. A “path” as you might?
Your hypo and its answer is just that. Doesn’t matter what Loser may add to it. What he or I may think of it.
So I agree===I’m just on pins and noodles waiting for Loser’s next eclectic hypo.
I am so very happy to be living in a meaningless universe. Just imagine the opposite?
#83, Loser’s aim is to demonstrate that anyone choosing their wife over the lives of ten strangers is selfish.
Nope. The only way you’ll know is if you answer WHY you chose your wife over the strangers. Otherwise, your choice could be just random.
WHY would YOU choose your wife’s life over that of a group of strangers?
#85, Yep. He’s so afraid of the mirror, he thrashing around like a fish out of water right now.
#99, I would comment, but I am not sure I would get a truthful answer. c’est la vie