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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

#101

Post by luckydude »

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…

Just curious, do you have kids? I might have agreed with you before I held my preemie (only 5 weeks, nothing like the baby we are talking about) in my hand:

http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/photos/1999/04/16.html

It's easier to make the calls before you have a kid, they are calls in theory. After you have a kid you are changed, what was an obvious call becomes much much more complex.

If you can make that call after holding your own kid, wow.

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

#102

Post by thaumasiotes »

nairteashop wrote: post #71
thaumasiotes wrote: post #42

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…

> 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.

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

This glob we're talking about has less in common with a (prototypical) human being than does a 29-week fetus still implanted in the womb. You're taking a strong stand here in the abortion debate; is that intentional?

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

#103

Post by lmm »

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…

> 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.

What about progressive taxation and nationalized healthcare, like most wealthy countries do?

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

#104

Post by thaumasiotes »

cperciva wrote: post #83
thaumasiotes wrote: post #42

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…

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 If you look at the cost in dollars per QALY, it's not that bad. That million dollar treatment probably produces 40 QALYs, for a cost of $25,000 per QALY; Americans typically pay $50-100k per QALY.

I see the logic here, but I don't really agree with it. Obviously, if the fetus had a million dollars of its own, it would happily spend them for the purpose, and that would be a sensible investment. But it doesn't, and I don't think it's a sensible investment for any third party, even the parents.

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

#105

Post by stephenr »

bluthru wrote: post #56
thaumasiotes wrote: post #42

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 don't necessarily agree, but I don't think your opinion should be downvoted. Consider this: We as a society have more than enough wealth to give ICU care to every infant that needs it. Our medical system is what makes it expensive.

Can't reply one level down.

From what I've read, it is the very nature of the beast (purely private, for profit health insurance) that causes the costs to be higher.

As I said in another comment, an earlier claim of "13 to 18 $K" for health insurance seems ridiculous, coming from a country where $6k gets top-level private insurance (to cover electives, get a private room vs shared, etc) on top of "free" health care) for a family.

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

#106

Post by dangrossman »

a3n wrote: post #79
pavlov wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

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

#107

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#108

Post by thaumasiotes »

luckydude wrote: post #101
thaumasiotes wrote: post #42

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…

Just curious, do you have kids? I might have agreed with you before I held my preemie (only 5 weeks, nothing like the baby we are talking about) in my hand: http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/photos/1999/04/16.html It's easier to make the calls before you have a kid, they are calls in theory. After you have a kid you are changed, what was an obvious call becomes much much more complex. If you can make that call after holding yo…

For your reference:

I don't have children of my own. When I was 16, my mother gave birth to twins, so I have more parenting experience than the typical childless American, including that of holding closely-related infants.

> It's easier to make the calls before you have a kid, they are calls in theory. After you have a kid you are changed

Very true, but I don't see myself reversing on this.

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

#109

Post by coldtea »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #45
fennecfoxen wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 muc…

>Healthcare for distressed infants is certainly not an example of inelastic demand where people have to pay for it themselves

I take it you don't have a child?

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

#110

Post by judk »

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…

AOL does pay health benefits, what happened was they cut 401k to maintain their comp budget.

Rmember : Slate opinion blogs != journalism

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