AOL CEO apologizes for comments (preemies/healthcare)

[♥ms.pacman♥]

I try not to watch the news but stumbled across this. OMG, his comments were insensitive at the very, very best. I am appalled. He basically said he was going to cut employee benefits because the company had to pay close $1 million in hospital bills for 2 preemie babies (babies of employees). He apologized later and reversed the decision, but still I think a lot of damage has been done.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/aol-ceo-tim-armstrong-apologizes-for-distressed-babies-remarks/

The mom of one of the babies wrote a Slate entry in response, which was AWESOME. Made me tear up at some points, as DD was a preemie/NICU baby too (though nowhere near as serious).

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/02/tim_armstrong_blames_distressed_babies_for_aol_ben efit_cuts_he_s_talking.html

A quip from it (bolding/italics mine):
Our daughter has already overcome more setbacks than most of us have endured in the span of our lives. Having her very existence used as a scapegoat for cutting corporate benefits was one indignity too many.

I agree that this whole mentality of scapegoating people has just got to stop. Sure, blame Obamacare all you want, but don't single families out just because they happened to get a sick kiddo. I mean, how dare they want to keep their freaking children alive and not want to spend the rest of their lives in financial ruin. Good grief. Unfortunately this culture of scapegoating seems all the more popular...*sigh*....

[TwinFoxes]

If my company had called me out like that after DDs were born, I'd be horrified. If they had said "someone gave birth to premature twins, so your 401k is being effected", I just can't imagine! It's not like it was my plan. And as the Slate author pointed out, she didn't even have a high risk pregnancy, it was totally out of the blue that she'd have a preemie.

Once my company said our copays were going up because people used more mental health benefits than average. We all thought that was a little insensitive. But actually calling out specific cases? Nice privacy.

[ahisma]

It's hogwash anyway. AOL likely has reinsurance that covers costs above a set point. Any self-insured company knows that high claims are possible (and likely).

[american_mama]

That mother's response is truly awesome.

[sunshine873]

Wow. As a mom of my own 1.5 lb preemie, I'm horrified by the CEO's gall. Yet, stand proudly behind the mom's response, nodding my head and saying, yes...what she said!!!

[NJ_Mom2011]

This CEO was complaining about this baby's medical care, which he claims was $1 million, but he makes $12 million. I do not like how this man conducts business.

I have health insurance to pay for catastrophic situations such as presented by these babies' births. In turn I know my premiums are helping others that may have catastrophic medical bills. That's the purpose of medical insurance.

I feel bad for these two families put in the spotlight by this bad CEO. They had to go through the stress of their babies' medical issues, now they have to deal with this. Isn't it some kind of HIPAA violation for an employer to blab about employees' health issues?

[lizzywednesday]

Both DH and I read the Slate piece after hearing about the CEO's comments.

There are so many things that resonated with us, and our baby WASN'T in the ICU as long as Ms. Fei's, but we experienced a lot of the same emotions. DH actually told me that every single thing that was written in that essay was exactly how he felt - like he needed to protect himself from getting attached, so he shut down, was afraid to love our DD ... not that I couldn't tell, but it was not nice, exactly, but in that zone, hearing it from him.

[chlobo]

What jerk. And how can all those people blame Obamacare when it wasn't even in effect when these kids were born. People mystify me when they go so far off the issue. The issue is the overpaid CEO who is an insensitive jerk.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

It's hogwash anyway. AOL likely has reinsurance that covers costs above a set point. Any self-insured company knows that high claims are possible (and likely).


This CEO was complaining about this baby's medical care, which he claims was $1 million, but he makes $12 million. I do not like how this man conducts business.

I have health insurance to pay for catastrophic situations such as presented by these babies' births. In turn I know my premiums are helping others that may have catastrophic medical bills. That's the purpose of medical insurance.

I feel bad for these two families put in the spotlight by this bad CEO. They had to go through the stress of their babies' medical issues, now they have to deal with this. Isn't it some kind of HIPAA violation for an employer to blab about employees' health issues?

these were my thoughts too...DH and I were talking about this last night. This guy is whining about the entire company losing $2M because of these babies (which the mom is contesting and saying it wasnt that high), yet he brought home $12M that year. And yes, doesn't the company have insurance on that too (isn't the insurance co eating some of that?)

He sounds like a complete d*ck all around and while he gets flak for his comments and later apologizes I think it is all pretty damaging and only feeds further into the scapegoating mentality. Oh, and the mom of the other "distressed" baby? She lost 3 of her 4 quadruplets and he referred to that case as an "HR nightmare." Who says stuff like this??? I mean, taking an employee's most traumatic experience (losing a child, or having a very sick baby/nearly losing a child) and holding it up to everyone as an excuse for why they are cutting benefits...there are no words.

[arivecchi]

He sounds like a peach. I read an article somewhere that had a funny but revealing comment: "The most surprising thing of this news article is that AOL still exists." LOL, but really, maybe he should be focusing his energies on that instead of "distressed babies". Lesson here: do NOT mess with babies mr. blabbermouth!

[mikala]

these were my thoughts too...DH and I were talking about this last night. This guy is whining about the entire company losing $2M because of these babies (which the mom is contesting and saying it wasnt that high), yet he brought home $12M that year. And yes, doesn't the company have insurance on that too (isn't the insurance co eating some of that?)

He sounds like a complete d*ck all around and while he gets flak for his comments and later apologizes I think it is all pretty damaging and only feeds further into the scapegoating mentality. Oh, and the mom of the other "distressed" baby? She lost 3 of her 4 quadruplets and he referred to that case as an "HR nightmare." Who says stuff like this??? I mean, taking an employee's most traumatic experience (losing a child, or having a very sick baby/nearly losing a child) and holding it up to everyone as an excuse for why they are cutting benefits...there are no words.

Were there two sets of quadruplets? I thought the he nightmare stuff was part of a Google lawsuit for him.
http://mobile.businessweek.com/news/2014-02-09/aol-s-armstrong-apologizes-after-401-k-gaffe-stirs-controversy

He sounds like a train wreck. Wanna nominate a list of insensitive or offensive execs for a remote island together? We can send this guy and the Lululemon ceo.

[NJ_Mom2011]

Oh, and the mom of the other "distressed" baby? She lost 3 of her 4 quadruplets and he referred to that case as an "HR nightmare."
I didn't even know this part of the story. This man is a dirty diaper face. (I wanted to say something stronger, but for once restrained myself).
:hopmad:

[♥ms.pacman♥]

Were there two sets of quadruplets? I thought the he nightmare stuff was part of a Google lawsuit for him.
http://mobile.businessweek.com/news/2014-02-09/aol-s-armstrong-apologizes-after-401-k-gaffe-stirs-controversy



Oh, i think you right. I just first was reading snippets from the story from some sites like this, where it puts them all together and it's rather vague: http://www.veooz.com/news/Gr9yRT.html

But yes, the woman with the quads was a different case when he was at Google, and i think the main thign was that he demoted her as a result of her (high risk) pregnancy. Ah, I guess it's so hard to keep all of his rotten comments straight, there are so many of them :irked:

[dogmom]

He sounds like a peach. I read an article somewhere that had a funny but revealing comment: "The most surprising thing of this news article is that AOL still exists." LOL, but really, maybe he should be focusing his energies on that instead of "distressed babies". Lesson here: do NOT mess with babies mr. blabbermouth!

My DH is always mystified why AOL even exists. I mean, people like his mother has it. She kept complaining her computer was running slow and had to reboot it, but when he went to see her problem she had 56 windows open in Internet Explorer because every time she clicked on a link someone sent her she thought she couldn't click on the X because it would delete it. That's right, his mom thought she could delete the internet, rofl! So that's the kind of people I think have AOL still. Those and people who can't change their home page that was factory installed on their computer. His theory is Mr. Sensitive CEO is chumming the waters with talking points about Obamacare and distressed, lazy babies so he can get more face time on Fox news because it's free advertising for his consumer base, since the average age of their viewership is 65+.

There are plenty of serious conversations one can have about high risk pregnancies and very premature babies. These are always being held by respectable people in the medical community, it's a hard discussion have. Deciding to single them out for blame vs any other catastrophic medical condition is ridiculous.

[arivecchi]

I like your DH's theory dogmom! He may be on to something!

[westwoodmom04]

My DH is always mystified why AOL even exists. I mean, people like his mother has it. She kept complaining her computer was running slow and had to reboot it, but when he went to see her problem she had 56 windows open in Internet Explorer because every time she clicked on a link someone sent her she thought she couldn't click on the X because it would delete it. That's right, his mom thought she could delete the internet, rofl! So that's the kind of people I think have AOL still. Those and people who can't change their home page that was factory installed on their computer. His theory is Mr. Sensitive CEO is chumming the waters with talking points about Obamacare and distressed, lazy babies so he can get more face time on Fox news because it's free advertising for his consumer base, since the average age of their viewership is 65+.

There are plenty of serious conversations one can have about high risk pregnancies and very premature babies. These are always being held by respectable people in the medical community, it's a hard discussion have. Deciding to single them out for blame vs any other catastrophic medical condition is ridiculous.

I think you are being too generous. The guy is just an idiot and too stupid even to realize he should keep his mouth shut since its amazing that he gets $12 million a year for his lackluster performance at AOL- he's a poster child for the need for executive pay reform. This is the same guy who fired an employee for taking his picture during a company meeting announcing layoffs. http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/12/tech/aol-conference-call-firing/