Insurance--Again!

Ugh. I just went through the huge (HUGE!) headache of applying for different insurance. Currently, I pay $$$ a month just to insure myself. On top of that, my insurance company requires me to pay out of pocket for my prescriptions, and then, eventually, they will reimburse me the 80% they're supposed to pay for those. So the new policy would only cost $ a month, and I'd have a flat fee at the pharmacy counter for a month's supply of medication, so I wouldn't constantly have to deal with the rising prices of my particularly expensive medication (incidentally, the cost of my medication has risen almost 70% in the last seven years--YOUCH!).

So I had a question regarding the letter of creditable coverage that I would need to get coverage for my pre-existing condition before the 365-day waiting period, and I was informed that I had been rejected. Rejected. Now, granted, I have a pre-existing condition, but it's well controlled. I've had a baby within the last 8 weeks, but I had the obligatory 6-week post-partum checkup that the new company was making me get in order to apply (which I now have to pay for with absolutely no benefit for having jumped through this hoop), and everything was perfectly normal. So why was I rejected? Because I'm too fat, apparently, for them.

Now, to give you some perspective, this is me when I got married:

According to the BMI charts (which the insurance company uses to determine whether or not a person is "too fat" to be insured), I was overweight in the picture. Now, really? Overweight? I was fit and healthy, and if I got any skinnier, I'd start looking frail. Granted, I don't look like this anymore (although, I'm working on it!), but, if I was "overweight" back then, imagine what I am now, with the remains from four children clinging to me (because, yeah--I need to lose some weight now)! Yeah. So that's super duper annoying. Well, more than annoying--insulting. I mean, here I am, 8 weeks removed from childbirth, already counting calories and exercising as much as I can, trying to BE as healthy as I can BE now, and GET as healthy as I can GET while I'm at it. And no one the heck cares. All that matters is the numbers. It's downright discouraging, and makes me feel just a little bit sub-human. 

Okay, and the fact that I have to keep paying for insurance that I can barely afford is really maddening, too. Why can't I have the same options as someone else, who better falls inside the little box allowed for us by the stupid BMI charts? Well, because I'm "fat," that's why. And fat people are stupid, and unhealthy, and lazy, and undesirable riffraff that need to be purged from society. Apparently.