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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

#41

Post by fennecfoxen »

paul wrote: post #30

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…

If we think microeconomics for a moment: healthcare for distressed infants could be a textbook example of inelastic demand. Q: How much are you willing to pay to save the life of this child? A: ALL THE MONEY! AND MORE!!

Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

#42

Post by thaumasiotes »

paul wrote: post #30

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…

> 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.

Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

#43

Post by jbapple »

bigchewy wrote: post #25

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 th…

> (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.).

Could you explain more about how self insuring works?

Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

#44

Post by dlokshin »

ekidd wrote: post #31

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 insura…

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

Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

#45

Post by thaumasiotes »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #41
paul wrote: post #30

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…

If we think microeconomics for a moment: healthcare for distressed infants could be a textbook example of inelastic demand. Q: How much are you willing to pay to save the life of this child? A: ALL THE MONEY! AND MORE!!

People are a little more willing to spend someone else's money on less-than-worthwhile pursuits than they are to spend their own. As long as the customers aren't bearing the cost, everything they buy will have a similarly inelastic demand. Healthcare for distressed infants is certainly not an example of inelastic demand where people have to pay for it themselves; even food for healthy infants (a much smaller, and much more cost-effective, expense) doesn't show inelastic demand.

Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

#47

Post by paul »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #42
paul wrote: post #30

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…

> 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 c…

I'm aware of that kind of thinking, which is why I'm glad you aren't running the medical system.

Consider who you're talking about when you say, "The cost of replacing the thing".

Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

#48

Post by blahedo »

ekidd wrote: post #31

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 insura…

You mean ACA (i.e. Obamacare)? The AMA is the American Medical Association (or at least, that's the apparent referent here).

Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

#49

Post by ItendToDisagree »

bigchewy wrote: post #25

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 th…

How exactly are outliers like this not "what insurance is for"? I'm curious (not arguing). I could understand that 'self insuring' is a different beast, but isn't the point of insurance in general (not just healthcare), to protect against outliers?

If the company didn't put aside enough money to account for unexpected cases, such as this, arn't they just being negligent (or at the very least causing their own financial problems)?

Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

#50

Post by goodcanadian »

dlokshin wrote: post #44
ekidd wrote: post #31

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 insura…

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 tha…

I have a relative who works in a NICU. A 1 in 3 chance of death is actually pretty good odds (relatively speaking) for a premature baby in intensive care, so no, socialized medicine would not have killed this child.
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