That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by JimmyM » Sun, Feb 09, 2014, 9:19 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #172

dkural wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your interpretation Paul? What did he say? Do you think Tim did anything wrong or do you advice that Tim sticks to his guns on this one & shouldn't have caved in with that second memo?

What did he say? http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/02/8539961/... He shouldn't have mentioned specific cases. If he felt the company had to cut elsewhere to compensate for high medical costs, he should have left it at that level of detail. But I don't see how you get from what he actually said to I'm utterly appalled at Tim Armstrong's attitudes towards the lives of his employee's children. Apparently…

I'm acutely aware that I'm effectively posting on your territory, but the term "lynch mob" seems to be almost comically inappropriate as a description of what actually occurred.

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

#192

Post by russtrpkovski » Sun, Feb 09, 2014, 9:20 PM UTC

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 may be a self insured group where it pays all of the medical costs for its employees. The insurance company merely provides administrative services such processing claims and paying providers.

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

#193

Post by tsotha » Sun, Feb 09, 2014, 9:20 PM UTC

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…

>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.

All he said is they changed the 401k plan because of unexpectedly high medical expenses. He didn't say or imply he wished they didn't save the baby. I can give the kid's mother a pass on two pages of disjointed emoting, but I don't understand why a disinterested observer would write something like you've written.

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

#194

Post by dylandrop » Sun, Feb 09, 2014, 9:24 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #172

dkural wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your interpretation Paul? What did he say? Do you think Tim did anything wrong or do you advice that Tim sticks to his guns on this one & shouldn't have caved in with that second memo?

What did he say? http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/02/8539961/... He shouldn't have mentioned specific cases. If he felt the company had to cut elsewhere to compensate for high medical costs, he should have left it at that level of detail. But I don't see how you get from what he actually said to I'm utterly appalled at Tim Armstrong's attitudes towards the lives of his employee's children. Apparently…

I think saying "I'm utterly appalled" on an online chat board is a lot different from joining a mob to kill someone. Let's not make any Tom Perkins-esque comparisons here [1].

And people should certainly be allowed to react when those in positions of power say appalling things. Whether he thinks that is absolutely unacceptable is doubtful, but he clearly thinks that the $7.1M in healthcare spending is something that should have to come out of the workers' 401k. The OP wasn't quoting Armstrong, but what Armstrong actually said/did clearly mirrors OP's paraphrasing -- that health spending shouldn't be the duty of AOL, because it should be passed on to the employees through the form of a 401k cut.

[1] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230454950...

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

#195

Post by yscale » Sun, Feb 09, 2014, 9:27 PM UTC

luckydude wrote: post #169

yscale wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are an ignorant, arrogant idiot, and a callous asshole. BTW, we already knew you didn't have kids. We knew that both from your beliefs, and moreso from the the hurtful language you chose to use. We all already knew you were childless. And single. And white. And male. And a programmer. And an asshole. Now do the world a favor, and shut up. Forever.

I was once a childless single white male programmer. Oh, and an asshole. Didn't realize it at the time but I wised up. Give him time and cut him a little slack, he's entitled to his opinion.

He's entitled to his (ignorant) opinions, but he's not entitled to be so pointlessly rude and cruel with his method of expressing it.

If this was a dinner party, I'd quietly ask him to excuse himself, and he'd never be invited again. His choice of language was pointlessly cruel and outrageous.

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

#196

Post by mindcrime » Sun, Feb 09, 2014, 9:27 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #176

mindcrime wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Do you really think it's possible to have a comprehensive understanding of "Tim Armstrong's attitudes towards the lives of his employee's children" based on this one little blurb? I mean, seriously... I can't help but think people are constructing a caricature of the…

He chose to make it specific, rather than just saying 'employee medical insurance costs were higher than expected.' By using the specific medical problems of two families to cast management in a positive light and also to justify changing the firms pension contribution structure to be less generous, he made the decision to present these issues as a zero sum game in which the beneficiaries of medical insurance - somet…

All of that may, or may not, be true. But none of it addresses the issue I was questioning, which is how anybody can claim to understand "Tim Armstrong's attitude towards the lives of his employee's children" based on nothing more than this one news article.

I'm saying we shouldn't be rushing to judgment, and creating this caricatured images of Armstrong (or anybody else) and basically screaming "off with his head", without sufficient information.

Again, I don't know him... never met the guy in my life. He may be a complete douchebag and a total jackass for all I know. But it would be premature to conclude any of that from this story.

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

#197

Post by sgk284 » Sun, Feb 09, 2014, 9:31 PM UTC

gwern wrote: post #177

sgk284 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tho…

> If the child lives to 80, she only needs to contribute $12,500 worth of value to civilization per year for this to make economic sense. No, that's not correct. You're not thinking at the margin.

Still makes sense at the margin. Updated wording slightly to clarify.

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

#198

Post by clavalle » Sun, Feb 09, 2014, 9:32 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #172

dkural wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your interpretation Paul? What did he say? Do you think Tim did anything wrong or do you advice that Tim sticks to his guns on this one & shouldn't have caved in with that second memo?

What did he say? http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/02/8539961/... He shouldn't have mentioned specific cases. If he felt the company had to cut elsewhere to compensate for high medical costs, he should have left it at that level of detail. But I don't see how you get from what he actually said to I'm utterly appalled at Tim Armstrong's attitudes towards the lives of his employee's children. Apparently…

While the upvoted comment is a bit histrionic, I think it reflects the fact that Tim Armstrong could bring up specific medical cases as being contributing factors is a little frightening to most people.

We don't like to think about the reality that life or death situations we have no control over are being weighed on a balance sheet by people who's primary goal is making profits for shareholders.

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

#199

Post by DanBC » Sun, Feb 09, 2014, 9:35 PM UTC

shasta wrote: post #96

ForHackernews wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 don't really understand how anyone can lump a real child with whom you have years of shared experiences, who you've loved and taught and who has a personality of its own in with a lump of cells that's yet to have a coherent thought.

I'm assuming you'd be annoyed if you had a hand or foot amputated?

And they're just lumps of cells that have never had a coherent thought.

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

#200

Post by malandrew » Sun, Feb 09, 2014, 9:40 PM UTC

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…

As callous as it is, this is the best solution under a not-for-profit health system. The cost-benefit analysis in such a system is not 1 million dollars in shareholder value versus 1 million dollars to save a life, but instead is 1 million dollars to save one life (just the first year to save the child. there most certainly will probably be a lot more money spent over the entire life of the person born under such conditions) versus splitting that million dollars over procedures and medicines to save several lives.

At the end of the day, you need to value all person-years-lived equally, and determine who gets treatment and for what based on what maximizes the number of person-years lived over the entire pool of people.

I have no numbers to back this up, but I would expect the greatest benefit from a fixed amount of healthcare dollars spent will be on people between the ages of 4 and 20.

Once you've figured out roughly the cost per medical issue, frequency per capita of each medical issue, and a distribution graphing that issue against the age at which most people are afflicted and number of years left in their lives given their demographic, you can probably come up with a reasonable algorithm for maximizing person-years-lived at a certain health premium per person per year (assuming all dollars go back into the system).

Then the only remaining question that is left for society and individuals to answer is what level of premium will be paid and the medical issues that will be covered at that premium.

Furthermore, I think it would be interesting if we gave people in medical situations the following choice:

"The procedures necessary to save this person's life are estimated to cost 1 million dollars. You can choose to save this person's life, or you can choose to donate $800 thousands dollars to save X number of lives by donating it to procedures that maximize the number of lives saved."

People choosing to exercise their right to spend healthcare dollars on a lifesaving procedure for one individual are the ones that should have to face that philosophical and ethical dilemma of deciding to value one life over many.

If I were running a healthcare system, I would make it policy that everyone put in such a position would have to knowingly have to make that hard decision. It's the only sane way that would put the burden of callousness on the people with the right to to those health services. Just because you have the right to those services, doesn't mean you should exercise them in a not-for-profit healthcare system.