Aislin Bates is by all accounts a healthy, active 2 year old who was denied health insurance by United Health Care for being too small. She weighs 22 pounds which is in the third percentile for children her age. Her father was dumbfounded stating:

“It seems as if they’re discriminating about the fact that she’s smaller, that her size is an issue,. I don’t see why that would be a factor in whether or not a child is healthy.”

Although the parents expressed disbelief about the rejection, I am sure they understand the real reason for this denial. It’s more than likely that Aislin parent’s will request growth hormone therapy which comes out to about $20,000 per year and total treatment costs can easily tally up to over $100,000.

Aislin will be a big “expense” for United Health Care and there is no way they will ever cover the costs for this type of therapy from health care premiums. Let’s face it, the insurance companies are in the business of making money, not securing your health and this and similar cases makes this abundantly clear. Here’s yet another reason we absolutely need a government run public insurance option as part of Obama’s health care overhaul.  Otherwise, all a health care overall will do is enrich the coffers of the very insurance companies that are making health decisions based on profit and loss calculations.

Source