The insurance industry is sick. After studying the symptoms, we've diagnosed them with "Goldilocks syndrome," named after the little blonde heroine of the popular children's story.

Like her, insurance companies have broken into people's homes but then cherry-picked which customers are "too big" or "too small" to insure, settling on the ones that are "juuust right." The stories have been all over the news over the past few weeks: one baby who was "too big," another toddler who was "too small." But the insurance companies aren't dealing with fictional talking bears. These are real people who need medical coverage.

In the most recent case of "Goldilocks syndrome," an insurance company turned down a perfectly healthy 40-year-old woman for being "too small." Wendy Stewart, who is 5' 1" and tips the scales at 90 pounds, was denied coverage because of her small stature. Aside from the sheer insanity of deeming someone "too small" to insure, Wendy is actually not even that small by medical standards: the ideal weight for her height is between 95 and 116 lbs. She may not be be perfect, but she's certainly not in any danger.

Of course if this whole story is sounding familiar, you may be remembering another case of "Goldilocks syndrome" in Colorado, which was uncovered a few weeks ago during a HELP Committee hearing. Peggy Robertson testified that her three-year-old son Luke was denied insurance by Golden Rule Insurance, a subsidiary of United Healthcare, because he was "too small." While Golden Rule claimed that they were following industry standards, our recent revelation makes you wonder exactly what those "standards" dictate.

The insurance industry wants us to think these are isolated cases. Clearly, however, the numbers don't lie. More and more people are coming out with similar stories of denial. How many more are still out there? Worse yet, how many more are not even aware that their claims were denied based on outrageous height and weight requirements?