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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

#71
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…

> one-and-a-half-pound globs

This is a human being we are talking about. A child.

I like to think of myself as someone who can usually empathize with folks who hold a different point of view, but I have never been able to understand someone who looks at a human life in terms of a "cost-benefit" analysis.

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

#72
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

If several dollars a day will keep people in certain parts of the world alive, doesn't the question become how many must die to save this one life? http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-sta...

I am hopeful that this is not a zero-sum game...

And for the record, I think this is the wrong battle, health care is entirely too expensive in the first place.

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

#73
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…

You know I don't agree with the point you've tried to make but it's good to read arguments from various perspectives. Having said that, your last sentence is unnecessarily and (perhaps intentionally?) hurtful to Paul. Would you really call someone else's child "the thing" in person?

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

#74
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

.. and in the universal-healthcare UK, my brother survived being 12 weeks premature. Do you have a cite for the French system, specifically that withdrawal of care in NICU? English or French will be fine.

In the UK they give services, and reasses on an ongoing basis, so different than the French. Added some info for under 37 weeks, where the US comes out on top.

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

#76
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

If several dollars a day will keep people in certain parts of the world alive, doesn't the question become how many must die to save this one life? http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-sta... I am hopeful that this is not a zero-sum game... And for the record, I think this is the wrong battle, health care is entirely too expensive in the first place.

No it doesn't - these are not mutually exclusive choice. How are expenses for US health care and aid to foreign countries related? You could just as well budget the money for the latter against the expense for a coffee, an aircraft carrier or Armstrong's salary.

I totally agree that health care is too expensive at the moment.

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

#77
post #36

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…

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 sh…

You can look at the data, but you can't conclude much from it; those numbers are not comparable to each other.

From 2008: http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-doctor-is-in-infant-mortality-co...

Some (OK, rather extensive) points from the link:

> In the United States, all infants who show signs of life at birth (take a breath, move voluntarily, have a heartbeat) are considered alive.

> In Belgium and France — in fact, in most European Union countries — any baby born before 26 weeks gestation is not considered alive and therefore does not “count” against reported infant mortality rates.

The baby at issue here would have been just under 22 weeks. (France changed their standard in 2008-2009; their page defining stillbirth ( http://www.insee.fr/en/methodes/default.asp?page=definitions... ) now includes a warning that French numbers cannot be compared to other European neonatal mortality numbers, so it seems safe to assume the rest of Europe has carried on as before.)

> According to the way statistics are calculated in Canada, Germany, and Austria, a premature baby weighing The article baby weighed well over 500g. But this is quite relevant to the question of who has better neonatal mortality.

> In Switzerland and other parts of Europe, a baby born who is less than 30 centimeters long is not counted as a live birth. Therefore, unlike in the U.S., such high-risk infants cannot affect Swiss infant mortality rates.

This baby's length is not reported, so this is of questionable relevance to this particular baby. But, again, it remains very relevant to the question of "do countries like Finland, France, and Cuba have better neonatal mortality than the US?"

> If a child in Hong Kong or Japan is born alive but dies within the first 24 hours of birth, he or she is reported as a “miscarriage” and does not affect the country’s reported infant mortality rates.

This could be a non-premature, 8-pound baby!

> Efforts to salvage these tiny babies reflect this classification. Since 2000, 42 of the world’s 52 surviving babies weighing less than 400g (0.9 lbs.) were born in the United States.

Still think "USD-tinted healthcare analytics" biases you against saving premature babies?

Full disclosure: I'm with your parent; I consider spending so much pumping life into these very premature "babies" a self-aggrandizing waste of time, effort, and money. But your comment seems to be grotesquely misinformed.

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

#78
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

I agree with your parent and thus don't want you in charge of "running the medical system," either. But we don't have to have one or the other. You buy your insurance policy that covers whatever it takes to save your fetus and I'll buy my policy that doesn't (and spend the difference on improving the lives of my healthy children).

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

#79
post #36

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…

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 sh…

> 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.

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

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 muc…

> Healthcare for distressed infants is certainly not an example of inelastic demand where people have to pay for it themselves Are you kidding me? If it was a question of saving my child's life, I'd spend every last cent I had and then go sell a kidney.

I gave you an example. Mothers uncertain of their ability to raise an infant will abandon it to die (this is traditionally called "exposure"). It's a practice at least as old as humanity. And it conclusively demonstrates that the demand for infant care is not inelastic; these mothers aren't killing themselves trying to preserve their nonviable children. Rather, they're killing the children so that they don't die themselves in the effort to save a doomed child.
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