
That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter - selmnoo
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/02/tim_armstrong_blames_distressed_babies_for_aol_benefit_cuts_he_s_talking.html
======
ekidd
I'm delighted to hear that this child is doing well, and I'm utterly appalled
at Tim Armstrong's attitudes towards the lives of his employee's children.
Apparently it's possible to pay a programmer $100K/year, but spending ten
times that to save the life of one of his employee's children is absolutely
unacceptable. I'll be sure to keep that in mind the next time I hear from an
AOL recruiter.

The whole point of insurance is that a middle-class family can afford to pay
$12,000 or $18,000 in premiums per year, but they can't easily afford a $1M
black swan medical event. So the insurance company spreads the risk out over a
large pool. The system breaks down, of course, if the pool is too small. A
company with 10 employees probably can't absorb a $1M expense either. But AOL
has 5,600 employees and it had $1.05B in net income in 2012. They can afford
it to cover expenses, even if they decide to self-insure.

Of course, another solution is to make the risk pool as big as humanly
possible and to get employers out of the insurance business completely, so
that no startup needs to worry about medical expenses. The AMA is a messy
political compromise to do exactly that. But Tim Armstrong is also upset about
the AMA. So I'm not quite sure what his ideal outcome is here.

~~~
dlokshin
The irony is that if we were to have a single payer or other form of universal
healthcare like they do in France, this little girl likely would have died. In
France they use "Statistical prognostic" approach which in these sorts of
cases withhold NICU services for infants with statistically low outcomes.

Edit: couldn't find data for premies at 25 weeks, but at 37 weeks and below,
survival rate in the US is higher than European countries.
[http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db23.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db23.htm)

~~~
spamizbad
Are you sure about that? France's Infant Mortality Rate is lower than the US.

France: 3.34 US: 5.90 (Per 1000 live births)

Source: [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html)

~~~
dlokshin
The assumption here being that a live birth is as likely in France as it is in
the US. What we should be looking for is percentage of survival for infants
born sub 25ish weeks or something like that (I don't have that data).

UPDATE: And as we see from this paper from the WHO, live birth in the US is
not what it means in France, for example. In the US it's any sign of life, in
France and Belgium it's living for some period of time: "it has also been
common practice in several countries (e.g. Belgium, France, Spain) to register
as live births only those infants who survived for a specified period beyond
birth"

[http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/6/07-043471/en/](http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/6/07-043471/en/)

------
GuiA
I'm glad this article was written. Armstrong's statements were so despicable
that in this case "airing the dirty laundry" is a perfectly appropriate
answer.

I'm also surprised that his statements aren't "suable" in some form in the
lawsuit happy country that is the United States of America. A friend of mine
immediately pointed out to the numerous healthcare privacy laws in place; and
another HN commenter pointed out on the original thread the possibility that
the employees with the distressed babies would get discriminated against by
their coworkers, after Armstrong's statements, due to the fact that they're
probably identifiable internally by their team members.

This is the same guy who fired an employee publicly during a company talk for
(apparently) taking pictures.
([http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/AOL...](http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/AOL-
CEO-Tim-Armstrong-Fired-Patch-s-Creative-4720914.php))

What a sad, sad man. I hope that he gets scared and lonely as he gets older
and older, when his billions won't change anything and when he realizes that
all of his misery stems from his own choices.

~~~
cosmie
> And to be honest, I'm surprised that his statements aren't "suable" in some
> form in the lawsuit happy country that is the United States of America. A
> friend of mine immediately pointed out to the numerous healthcare privacy
> laws in place; and another HN commenter pointed out on the original thread
> the possibility that the employees with the distressed babies would get
> discriminated against by their coworkers, after Armstrong's statements, due
> to the fact that they're probably identifiable internally by their team
> members.

It very well may be a suable violation. HIPAA laws prohibit the "misuse and
disclosures of PHI", and PHI includes a person's payment history, not just
their medical records[1]. Such a breach by a covered entity is a criminal
offence that can result in jail time by the offending employee[2]. As AOL
isn't a covered entity (e.g. healthcare provider, insurance company, etc), I'm
not sure whether it could be applied directly to Armstrong. You can probably
push a HIPAA violation to the insurance company, however, as Armstrong most
likely was told of these cases as the basis for group rate spikes during their
insurance contract re-negotiation.

And those are just justifications related to violating patient privacy laws.
I'm sure a lawyer could also make a pretty strong case against Armstrong
personally for defamation.

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_health_information](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_health_information)
[2]: [https://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-
resources/solutio...](https://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-
resources/solutions-managing-your-practice/coding-billing-
insurance/hipaahealth-insurance-portability-accountability-act/hipaa-
violations-enforcement.page)

~~~
kps
If, as some other comments say, AOL self-insures, are they a covered entity?

~~~
cosmie
IANAL, most of my knowledge of HIPAA compliance comes from Business Law
classes and required trainings when I worked for a healthcare/hospital system.

However, AFAIK that _would_ make them a covered entity. As a payor, they would
have direct access to their employee's medical records. Whereas under normal
circumstances, the payor/insurer only provides the employer non-PHI data such
as enrollment/disenrollment info and summary data (at an aggregate level) to
support pricing discussions, which is why they aren't usually a covered
entity. You can find a good write-up on HIPAA requirements for self-funded
insurance plans here[1].

[1 - pdf]
[http://www.nixonpeabody.com/files/155838_Benefits_Alert_20MA...](http://www.nixonpeabody.com/files/155838_Benefits_Alert_20MAR2013_.pdf)

------
paul
My daughter had a similar birth and hospital stay, which also produced a
million dollar insurance bill. It costs about $10,000/day to stay in the NICU.
I was never able work out why it costs so much, except that this is a major
profit center for hospitals, and they use the money to cover other, money
losing, departments.

Fortunately Google is run by good people, and they were never anything other
than supportive. I'm grateful for having had access to the best care for her.
I do think our medical system needs some rethinking though.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> I do think our medical system needs some rethinking though.

You probaby don't want to hear it, but if I were running a medical system I'd
decree that gestating one-and-a-half-pound globs (from the article: "One
doctor, visibly shaken, described [the fetus's skin] as 'gelatinous'") outside
the womb is a waste of resources. To me, if miscarriages aren't the end of the
world, neither are "babies" that die of natural causes within a few minutes of
being delivered.

There's just no way spending a million dollars to raise a fetus up to the age
of zero passes any kind of cost-benefit analysis. The cost of replacing the
thing is much, much lower.

~~~
sgk284
If the child lives to 80, she only needs to contribute an additional $12,500
worth of value to civilization per year for this to make economic sense.

Another way to look at this: the government has various estimates for the
value of a human life. It averages about $7MM. The "extraordinary" expense of
this child actually only requires a 14% increase in value over the average
citizen to make sense.

Most importantly though, we must recognize that the actual cost is actually
just the cost of risk spread across society, so instead of one person taking
the brunt of this cost, we as a society take it together. As a whole, it is
negligible on all of us, and it's a risk that any of us can fall into. The
value of having a system that supports each other is invaluable. Way more
valuable than a measly $1MM. We have strength in numbers and we all benefit
when a society supports each other. If we ostracize the statistical outliers
in this support system, then the support system itself (the one which we all
benefit from) falls apart.

In short, more important than the economic argument (which I argue, still
makes sense to spend $1MM on a baby), is the argument that the value to
society from supporting each other results in a negligible cost for
individuals and a near-priceless benefit to everyone within that society. It's
exceptionally difficult to put a price tag on that, and it's orders of
magnitude higher than $1MM.

~~~
malandrew
That still doesn't maximize overall benefit. What if the money were instead
spent on 10 individuals that needed 1/10 the money to save their lives? The
cost benefit analysis to determine what medical issues make most sense should
try to maximize the number of person-years-lived across the entire population.

~~~
jfoks
The money spend where '1/10 the money' was needed to save their lives is
additional money spent, not 'instead money'.

In this particular case, the 'instead money' was pure profits for a company
(and some taxes for the government).

Do you really think that the 'instead money' would have been a better choice?

Money is just money and is completely replaceable. Actually, we have machines
to make it: it's printable. Actually, we don't even have to physically print
the money to 'print the money'... It's a number in a computer file.

Every dollar is the same as every other dollar.

Each and every life, on the other hand, is unique.

~~~
malandrew
Unfortunately, I wasn't clear in my comment above like I was in other comments
in this thread. I am specifically referring to a not-for-profit focused
healthcare system. If the choice is between profits and the care necessary to
help a life, then it boils down to the contractual obligation of the insurer
given the level of coverage purchased. In a nationalized healthcare system
where costs are spread across all of society and the government has more or
less determined the pool of healthcare dollars available by specifying the
premium spent per citizen, there most certainly is a cost benefit analysis to
consider.

------
bigchewy
Tim Armstrong has an incredible ability to say the wrong thing.

The underlying topic, however, is fascinating. I do healthcare analytics for a
living so I see how often a single neonatal ICU incident can consume 30% of an
entire company's healthcare budget for the year (note: if you don't really
understand healthcare, e.g. what self insuring means, please don't respond
with comments that the insurance company pays the bills, this is what
insurance is for, etc.).

The economics of healthcare combined with the inability to have a rational
discussion on how to allocate resources means that doctors / researchers will
apply their research efforts where they will be rewarded. The race to keep
younger and younger babies alive is fueled with ego and dollars.

No one wants to talk about scarce resources and how to allocate dollars to
have the most impact. I wish conversations stemming from idiotic comments like
Armstrong's ended up being productive but they always end up with non-
actionable ranting around taking executive pay and giving it to sick people.
Unless someone proposes a mechanism to achieve that, it's just a dream / rant.

~~~
pavlov
_The race to keep younger and younger babies alive is fueled with ego and
dollars._

If you actually look at the global data on neonatal mortality [1], that
doesn't seem to be true.

Countries like Finland, France and Cuba perform better than the United States
on this metric. These countries offer completely free healthcare to babies and
pregnant mothers.

Frankly, I find your assumption borderline offensive. Maybe you should take
your USD-tinted healthcare analytics glasses off for a while and contemplate
the possibility that human lives are worth saving.

[1]
[http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.DYN.NMRT](http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.DYN.NMRT)

~~~
a3n
> contemplate the possibility that human lives are worth saving.

Here fucking here.

What do we want to accomplish with the most advanced civilization history has
ever seen? Advertising? A flourishing human condition? Fart apps? All? None?
Anarchic meritocracy? It's all on the table.

~~~
dangrossman
"Hear hear", imploring people to listen to someone. /pedantic

~~~
a3n
Thanks. I was actually thinking about that when I wrote it, but opted for
full-on indignation of the moment, rather than calm and contemplative
dictionary checking.

------
nilsbunger
AOL could've chosen a 3rd party insurance company instead of self-insuring.
Self-insuring was probably a decision intended to save money compared to
getting an external health provider.

The CEO could conclude that these outlier events create too much
unpredictability for the bottom line, and thus move the company to an external
healthcare provider. Heck, they could even fire the CFO or whoever made the
cost-benefit analysis if it was wrong. But blaming the employees, who didn’t
create this situation? Unacceptable.

~~~
ryguytilidie
Thats the real shocking part here. AOL made a poor business decision, paid for
it, and the CEO, the very person in charge of business decisions, blames
medical complications from a fucking baby. It is absolutely unfathomably
terrible from a quality human being perspective.

~~~
BSousa
Just in case the author is reading, change the fucking word placement please.

------
fiatmoney
If your company cannot afford to pay $1M insurance claims, you shouldn't be in
the business of insuring medical coverage. You should be re-insuring that
risk. There are many companies that will be happy to do this for you.

The fact that apparently AOL is on the hook for medical claims by its
employees indicates they've made a reasoned judgement that their risk pool is
diverse enough that it's worthwhile to self-insure, or they're incompetent.

Either way, it's crazy to set yourself up as an insurer and then complain
about having to pay claims. That's kind of the point.

~~~
justin66
Exactly. The expectation from the outset would have been that they'd pay out
less over time but experience more volatility, given the small risk pool.
Complaining about the volatility is just nonsensical.

I expect Anderson understood this but had to look for a reason to cut 401K
matching in a profitable quarter, and increasing executive compensation didn't
sound quite right, so... the high cost of saving babies! Whadda guy.

------
mkreef
I also had a distressed baby a few years ago that spent months in the NICU of
one of the best children's hospitals, had multiple surgeries, was in and out
of the hospital for the first few months of his life. Ultimately an incident
occurred that left him brain dead and on life support before he was 6 months
old. We decided to remove life support and held him as he died in our arms.
The family insurance plan offered by my ~1000 employee public tech company
covered everything. I never saw a single bill and only had to pay the
requisite co-pays. Always wondered how much it all costs...

~~~
tarr11
My condolences. It costs a lot, but I'm sure the costs to your family were
much higher that what the insurance company paid.

------
jobu
She quoted this line from some of the TV coverage:

    
    
      “How many distressed babies does AOL pay this guy?”
    

Does anyone know who said that? That's really dark, but also hilarious.

~~~
jhonovich
[http://valleywag.gawker.com/tim-armstrongs-salary-in-
distres...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/tim-armstrongs-salary-in-distressed-
babies-1517788240)

------
emp_zealoth
Isn't it how the insurance works(and the very point of it)? Spreading the
risk(and cost) over multitude of individuals? I his words utterly silly

~~~
scarmig
Tim Armstrong blaming Obamacare (its mandate for medical coverage for
situations like this) for the benefit cuts also has an interesting
implication:

If not for Obamacare, AOL would have provided a insurance plan that wouldn't
have covered this child, and instead left her to die and her family in a
permanent state of medical bankruptcy.

ETA: For the record, I think most insurance policies have covered this for
awhile. But Armstrong's either very confused, or, more likely, just struggling
to find a way to point fingers at anything who's not him.

~~~
MattBearman

      left her to die and her family in a permanent state of medical bankruptcy.
    

I can't get my head round this, as someone born and raised in the UK,
America's health care system (or lack there of) is the single thing that will
stop me ever wanting to live in the US.

~~~
icebraining
What about cases like this:
[http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/aug/24/avastin-
too-e...](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/aug/24/avastin-too-
expensive-for-patients) ?

I'm not a fan of the US system either, but I live in a country with State-run
healthcare, and cost decisions like those are made every day.

~~~
lmm
A national healthcare system doesn't take away any of the things you get in
the US. Many employers offer private medical insurance, and one can choose to
pay for individual treatments privately if one wishes. So if you're wealthy or
have a good employer, you're in just as good a position as you are in the US
(and if you're poor, you're better off).

------
pwg
Another interesting quote from the article:

> Let’s set aside the fact that Armstrong—who took home $12 million in pay in
> 2012

Assuming the above is factual (and I have no reason to doubt it), he wanted to
cut the 401(k) plan for everyone because of an expense that was one twelfth
the size of his own pay that same year.

Just a wee bit hippocritical there on his part.

~~~
Tycho
Just as an aside, I think AOL had the highest stock price increase in 2012 of
any comparable company. I wonder how much of compensation was due to capital
gains.

------
kabdib
Memo: Don't screw with someone who can write well.

[Yup, Armstrong is despicable]

------
gojomo
We need new words to describe new patterns of social news and commentary. For
aspects of this situation, I first propose 'paraphrage':

 _paraphrage_ (v): to paraphrase in a way to maximize outrage

Tim Armstrong has been widely _paraphraged_ as saying, "we're cutting your
401(k)s because two AOLers had distressed babies last year".

Paraphraging not only brings many profitable clicks, but it removes
complicating details that interfere with an audience's _offensertainment_.

 _offensertainment_ (n): amusement or enjoyment felt by taking offense, and
expressing moral indignation, usually in solidarity with some larger group

The isolation and individual disempowerment of modern online life has driven
many people to seek a compensating sense of joy, purpose, and belonging
through offensertainment. Leading offensertainment providers include Gawker,
the Huffington Post, and Slate, but the full participatory experience also
requires forwarding, commentary, and button-pushing through services like
Reddit, Facebook, Twitter – and HN.

------
smoyer
An amazing, baring article that brought back too many memories (our first son
was early and classified "distressed", though not nearly to this degree). I'm
glad to see she's doing so well, and I really have to wonder why pay health
insurance premiums (that claim to cover this sort of catastrophic event), if
you can't cash in on that policy should you ever need to (all the while
praying that you don't).

It's not like CEOs of large companies are selected for being empathetic, but
in this case I'll predict that he doesn't survive the publicity surrounding
his statements. Children are (and should be) important to a civilized society
regardless of their present capabilities or future expectations.

------
iandanforth
So I believe the following is true:

1\. The costs of the procedures involved are wildly inflated by the private
sector healthcare system we employ. 2\. Regardless of 1 the effort involved in
keeping the child alive was extraordinary. 3\. The effort involved was
disproportionate to the benefit to society.

It's unlikely the reader will agree with 3. That's ok. But I would ask anyone
who disagrees with 3 to think carefully about _if_ there is a line where the
effort to save a child's life is too great, and if that line exists, _how_
would you determine where it is, and given that method _where_ is that line
for you?

------
therobot24
Armstrong's quotes are quite deplorable and the backpedaling is cringe-worthy
but all i could think of while reading the article is Mrs. Lovejoy from the
simpsons, "Won't somebody think of the children?!"

~~~
ivraatiems
Because somebody should think of the children. And the geriatric. And the
disabled. Part of the point of having a developed society with a developed
healthcare system is using it to sustain people who can't sustain themselves.

I think this article isn't important because one person happened to say
something rude about somebody's daughter. It's important because it's a peek
into how a lot of people are actually thinking about the world, and that's
pretty scary.

~~~
therobot24
not disagreeing with anything here, nor did i in the previous post, merely a
light anecdote relating to how thick the writer is 'laying it on'

~~~
a3n
I think the writer can be forgiven for laying it on thick, since the writer is
the mother of one of those distressed babies.

And I think it's very useful for our empathy muscles to occasionally listen to
"biased" people like this mother.

~~~
therobot24
so i lack empathy because i think an article that primarily uses empathy can
be manipulative? classy...

~~~
a3n
therobot, I can't reply to your reply. (Except now I can, so I moved it. /HN)

No, I don't think you lack empathy, although I can see how my comment could be
taken that way. Apologies.

~~~
therobot24
No hard feelings. The article is important - especially being from one of the
mothers affected by the statement, her words carry more weight than others for
sure.

However, i do also think her bias in the matter let the article drift from the
costs of cost-cutting in health care (losing faith in a business), and slide
into fearmongering. A harsh word, yes, but she has a platform, she has our
attention, and she has experience where it counts, but instead of showing what
we can learn from it, she decided to pull our heart strings at every turn.

~~~
ivraatiems
Have you considered that rather than this being a calculated attempt to affect
mass opinion on something, this is in fact primarily a mother expressing her
distress about what she perceives as an attack on her child?

I didn't read it as trying to make any point other than "this is awful and
unfair and my daughter is innocent of wrongdoing."

I don't know that it's as calculated as it seems like you think it is.

~~~
therobot24
Of course i don't think it's calculated. Does the PTA mom who demands
creationist teachings in school calculate exactly how to guilt trip the
administration? Of course not. Rather emotion and personal morals influences
their decisions.

Same here, the emotional toll and frustration derived from the comments
(again, which were completely uncalled for) overly influenced the article.
There is no reason for her to not be frustrated and angry, and putting that
into her writing is important. It should not, however, be the primary driving
force of the article, otherwise it's just plain manipulation.

> I didn't read it as trying to make any point other than "this is awful and
> unfair and my daughter is innocent of wrongdoing."

My point exactly. To reiterate, she had a platform, she had us listening, and
she knows what she's talking about, but she missed the opportunity to spark a
real discussion of how to prevent this from happening again. Instead she only
focused on relating her frustration to every other parent reading, which in my
opinion, can be very manipulating. Using the anger that her daughter was a
target, and the fear that even though they're innocent they were punished is
manipulative. "Won't somebody please think of the children?!"

------
carbocation
Also see
[http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/02/tim_a...](http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/02/tim_armstrong_blames_distressed_babies_for_aol_benefit_cuts_he_s_talking.single.html)
for the single-page version.

------
ZanyProgrammer
He just exposed employee health data to the world-isn't that a violation of a
bazillion privacy laws?

------
CrowderSoup
I can't imagine that Tim Armstrong sits at home stewing about the high costs
of distressed babies, but singling them out in this situation is deplorable.

------
mratzloff
I don't think you guys understand how this works. Armstrong earned his $12
million salary. Employees, meanwhile, receive health care as an unearned
benefit bestowed on the commoners by the wealthy. If they abuse this gift (by
having premature babies, cancer, etc.), they will be expected to make up for
these extra costs elsewhere.

Blame the law for this: clearly those employees who abuse the system should be
fired outright, preferably on a conference call with 1000 people in
attendance. Sadly, due to government overreach, it is considered illegal.

------
malkia
Helping others is something that we did for very long long time

"The third stage, based on findings from Europe between around 500,000 and
40,000 years ago, sees humans such as Homo heidelbergensis and Neanderthals
developing deep-seated commitments to the welfare of others illustrated by a
long adolescence and a dependence on hunting together. There is also
archaeological evidence of the routine care of the injured or infirm over
extended periods. These include the remains of a child with a congenital brain
abnormality who was not abandoned, but lived until five or six years old. The
researchers also note that there was a Neanderthal with a withered arm,
deformed feet and blindness in one eye who must have been cared for, perhaps
for as long as twenty years."

[http://news.discovery.com/human/neanderthals-were-
compassion...](http://news.discovery.com/human/neanderthals-were-
compassionate-and-caring.htm)

------
brown9-2
The other very odd aspect of this story is blaming 7 million in new costs on
Obamacare.

A large company like aol would have already provided pretty good health
benefits. It is very unlikely that the ACA's provisions about mandatory
coverage for procedures (such as birth control) would have cost aol anything
significant.

------
delinka
"We had two AOL-ers that had distressed babies that were born that we paid a
million dollars each to make sure those babies were OK in general."

Is this how health insurance works? Maybe AOL is "self-insured"? I don't
understand AOL having anything to do with paying directly for medical
treatment. Except, by virtue of making claims and costing an insurer money,
the premiums increase. It's as if the insurers, ever-faithful capitalists they
are, want to sell us insurance and can't believe we have the gall to make
claims against our policies, and have convinced our employers to be equally
appalled.

------
mzr
How about AOL stop whining about paying for medical care, and stop employing
"digital prophets"? Perhaps then they could afford both the insurance costs
and 401(k)s.

[http://www.uproxx.com/technology/2014/02/meet-david-shing-
ak...](http://www.uproxx.com/technology/2014/02/meet-david-shing-aka-shingy-
aols-digital-prophet-possibly-tech-version-derek-zoolander/)

------
woodchuck64
Curious that AOL had to pay millions of dollars for insurance claims. Isn't
that the insurance company's responsibility?

~~~
lutusp
The entire point of this issue is that AOL chose to self-insure. That means
there was no insurance company.

~~~
ars
They should have gotten secondary catastrophic insurance. I.e. only for claims
over some dollar amount, which are very rare and very cheap to insure for.

------
judk
"My spouses' employer covers million-dollar expenses over 401k benefits, so
the CEO is an asshole."

------
skuunk1
Isn't this the same guy who fired one of his employees on a conference call?

[http://finance.yahoo.com/news/listen-to-aol-ceo-tim-
armstron...](http://finance.yahoo.com/news/listen-to-aol-ceo-tim-armstrong-
fire-a-patch-employee-in-front-of-1-000-coworkers-140600015.html)

------
gaius
This guy is a walking disaster. How is it anyone is willing to work for him?

~~~
fennecfoxen
Well, if you work for him, you apparently get Compensation, including salary,
401(k) matching, and a health plan that'll cover your infant's medical
expenses even if they run to like a million dollars. For someone or another,
that's probably the best deal they were offered.

~~~
judk
401k benefit is dropping, that's what this story was about before the baby
gossip blogging buried the point.

------
davidf18
I would be interested in the amount that AOL paid compared with the amount
that Medicaid would have paid for the same infant.

I would also like to know how much costs would be in France, UK, Germany,
Japan.

------
facepalm
I don't understand - doesn't insurance pay for such costs? Why is it an extra
burden for a company if one of their employees needs money from the health
insurance?

~~~
lutusp
Because AOL chose to self-insure, there's no insurance company, just an asset
pool within AOL itself.

~~~
facepalm
I see - didn't know that kind of thing exists.

Seems to me they very simply not good enough at crunching the numbers then.

Also, I think even insurances tend to have insurances against very high
insurance claims. Maybe they should look into that kind of thing.

------
fredgrott
so wait Tim's Logic...

1\. Baby born Medical cots $1 Million, INSURANCe COStS $250,00 and yet Tim
decides to eliminate 401ks to balance benefits costs over something that does
not increase insurance costs? You have to have a significant amount of
$250,000 in an insurance pool of AOL employees before that happens..one is not
the number that triggers it.

@. He also cited Obamacare. Obamacare is by design to get businesses to pay
healthcare for those at-risk employees in the low income brackets so that that
preventive health care spent on them decreases the huge medacaid expenses seen
later by THE FEDeral Government.Lets not even mention the productivity studies
that state employees are more productive when not worrying about uncovered
medical expenses.

Seems tome the AOL board shold remove this CEO for gross lacking of clear
thinking skills

------
michaelochurch
Tim Armstrong shows us directly what the upper class actually thinks of us.

The mean-spirited worldview shouldn't be a surprise. What is a bit brazen is
the "turn the poors on each other" behavior. Usually, it's not so obvious. He
had hoped that the rank-and-file employees would, as a response to this phony
scarcity (health benefits OR 401k, when the real problem is executive
overcompensation) imposed from above, turn their frustrations and gripes at
colleagues who get sick a lot (or have sick children, or sick parents) and
that the environmental change would, perhaps, prune the company of a few sick
people. It didn't work. Now everyone hates him. Good. I hope he dies alone,
broke, and miserable. (The "broke" part probably won't happen, but one can
dream.)

Whenever the upper class tries to turn the rest of us against each other (say,
Mission lifers vs. Google bus riders, who are on the same side even if they
don't know it) we should always recognize it for what it is, and attack the
real enemy with our combined force.

~~~
late2part
"shows us directly what the upper class actually thinks of us."

#1 - Tim Armstrong is an ugly man and doesn't speak for the upper class.

#2 - Many many many readers on HN are upper class.

~~~
walshemj
yes you should never never call out individual emploees in this way _WHY_ the
Senior Non exec has not told the Chairman that Mr Armstrong has to go

------
don_draper
Tim Armstrong should not only resign but leave the country. We would be better
off without losers like him.

