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.
That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter
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Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter
#22This guy is a walking disaster. How is it anyone is willing to work for him?
Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter
#23[deleted]
Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter
#24I'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…
> 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 [2]: https://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/solutio...
Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter
#25Tim 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.
Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter
#26Another 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.
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.
Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter
#27Curious that AOL had to pay millions of dollars for insurance claims. Isn't that the insurance company's responsibility?
Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter
#28so 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
Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter
#29AOL 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.
Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter
#30My 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.