"We had two AOL-ers that had distressed babies that were born that we paid a million dollars each to make sure those babies were OK in general. And those are the things that add up into our benefits cost. So when we had the final decision about what benefits to cut because of the increased healthcare costs, we made the decision, and I made the decision, to basically change the 401(k) plan." -- Armstrong
Whether or not it's absolutely unacceptable to him is debatable, but it is clearly acceptable to use the cost of preserving the lives of his employees' children as a scapegoat, when many other expenses (large engineering salaries, "digital prophets" [1]) could have been noted as examples of excessive expenditures. What ekidd is mad about, and I think reasonably so, is that the attitude of "oh, our employee's child almost died which was costly, so let's cut some benefits" as an acceptable mindset to Armstrong is very troubling. In so doing, he is passing on the price of expensive healthcare costs from AOL to his employees, in the form of a slashed 401k. Now that seems to be pretty close to ekidd's paraphrase -- Armstrong does consider it unacceptable for AOL to pay for his employee's child's healthcare, because he wants to pass on that cost to his employees vis-a-vis 401k cuts.
Now at least in my view, I'd hope my employer would place employees' wellbeing first, and consider cutting benefits as a last possible option, but maybe you have a different view.
Whether or not it's absolutely unacceptable to him is debatable, but it is clearly acceptable to use the cost of preserving the lives of his employees' children as a scapegoat, when many other expenses (large engineering salaries, "digital prophets" [1]) could have been noted as examples of excessive expenditures. What ekidd is mad about, and I think reasonably so, is that the attitude of "oh, our employee's child almost died which was costly, so let's cut some benefits" as an acceptable mindset to Armstrong is very troubling. In so doing, he is passing on the price of expensive healthcare costs from AOL to his employees, in the form of a slashed 401k. Now that seems to be pretty close to ekidd's paraphrase -- Armstrong does consider it unacceptable for AOL to pay for his employee's child's healthcare, because he wants to pass on that cost to his employees vis-a-vis 401k cuts.
Now at least in my view, I'd hope my employer would place employees' wellbeing first, and consider cutting benefits as a last possible option, but maybe you have a different view.
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/shingy-aol-digital-prophet-20...