[csdreamer7]

Nadella was the one who fired Microsoft's QA team for Windows. It took a while but those chickens finally came home to roost.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/1626871/microsoft-to-b...

This one youtuber, I forget his name, was fired as part of that layoff. He had a son with severe Autism and Microsoft's health benefits were very important to him.

[frde_me]

> He had a son with severe Autism and Microsoft's health benefits were very important to him.

This really sucks for him. Through should Microsoft _not_ layoff specific people due to health conditions? Is that something we require from companies?

[project2501a]

How about you nationalize your healthcare, so people like that are not depended on their work to get the care they need?

[WalterBright]

Employer provided health care insurance came about during WW2 because Roosevelt froze wages. Companies discovered they could "raise" wages by paying for the insurance themselves.

The practice persisted because employer paid health insurance is tax-deductible, while it isn't if a person pays it out of pocket.

The obvious solution is to make it tax-deductible.

[y7]

> The obvious solution is to make it tax-deductible.

Or make employer paid health insurance count as income and therefore not tax-deductible.

[WalterBright]

True. Total employee compensation is around 145% of their salary. The government could tax that extra 45%, but I doubt that would fly politically.

Typical accounts of employee compensation only measure wages and salaries. I've only seen the WSJ using total employee compensation, which is a far more realistic figure.

[okasaki]

That's how it works in the UK

[wombatpm]

Or lower the age for Medicare every year until everyone is covered.

[SpaceNoodled]

We could just lower it once, to zero, and be done with it.

[ethbr1]

The US healthcare system is like the Titanic: it turns slowly, and you don't want to fuck around with hitting icebergs.

[WalterBright]

We could. Who is going to pay that bill?

[hysan]

Wouldn’t that leave out the set of people who have no income? For example, long term unemployed, adults switching careers and needing to take a long time off for education, etc? While the solution gets close, I don’t think it’s strictly the same thing. Add on top of that our unnecessarily complicated tax system and this sounds even less equivalent.

[jagged-chisel]

I don’t see how this addresses the comment you replied to.

[wwweston]

It doesn’t. It’s part of a rosary of things people wield to stave off thinking about the topic. You can do other things besides nationalizing all care or insurance, but when you hear people talk about “open up markets to cross state competition”, or “everyone gets an HSA”, or “make insurance tax deductible/it’s fdr’s fault”, it’s rarely about the specific policy, those are liturgical texts / catechisms designed to give the impression of solutions without substance.

Tax deductibility is only a very minor reason why most private insurance is employer provided; the much larger reason is that employment is a decent way to get a reasonably distributed group (of people generally healthy enough to work) and that’s one way of getting balanced risk pool if you’re not doing community rating or a societ wide pool.

[Dylan16807]

> Tax deductibility is only a very minor reason why most private insurance is employer provided; the much larger reason is that employment is a decent way to get a reasonably distributed group

From what I saw, the combination of "no exclusions for pre-existing coverage" and "penalty for not having health insurance" worked pretty well to balance the risk pools without nationalized healthcare.

I would still like nationalized healthcare, but I think there are other ways to fix the problem at hand of people being dependent on their jobs for healthcare.

[WalterBright]

I suggested an alternative solution to the one proposed by the comment I replied to.

[jagged-chisel]

I don’t understand how “make it tax-deductible” is an alternative to “nationalize healthcare so it’s not tied to employment.”

[KetoManx64]

How about you do some research on the kind of healthcare that people in countries with socialized healthcare receive. 6 month waitlists for a cancer screenings, multi day emergency room waits for broken bones, maybe you've heard of the oh so wonderful death pods in Canada? Our system is by no means the best, but I'll take it any day over socialized systems.

[jayelem]

This is not my experience in Canada. It is not the experience of anyone I know. There are often long wait times in ERs for things that are non urgent. I waited 5 or 6 hours my last visit after initial assessment. I’ve known a few people that had life threatening cancers here: they were treated quickly, and compassionately by the health care system. There are bad wait times for some things: a hearing assessment took 6 months (there are private options for this but many people would rather wait - they trust the system more). There is a shortage of family doctors. Medications are not fully covered. But I promise you we have no death pods in our hospitals. If you get hit by a car, diagnosed with cancer, need an X-ray, a breathing test, etc. You get that care. It’s nowhere near perfect, but I’m thankful for it and most people I know feel similarly.

[acdha]

Can you cite the sources you researched? I’ve known people from all over the world and none of them found that to be true: the American healthcare system was commented on in disbelief over both the cost and difficulty of getting treatment compared to where they had previously lived.

[KetoManx64]

The first result when you Google Canada's healthcare waiting lists: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7292524/

Yes it is. The system has some very deep issues due to government involvement/meddling with both healthcare and insurance, but at least you can still receive life saving treatment in a timely manner.

They can be in disbelief all the want, but when people in countries with socialized healthcare get cancer or other life threatening medical conditions they come to the US and a private healthcare to get treated.

[acdha]

That’s one country, and I note that the authors of that paper directly contradict your thesis: “the Commonwealth Fund’s survey results show that other universal health care systems (eg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, and France) have much shorter wait times than Canada does”

The American system is also not looking so good as our wait times have been going up and access has been worsening for much of the country, especially over the last year.

[adi_kurian]

5 million people in the OECD come to the US every year to get created for their cancer?

[project2501a]

I did: Greece, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Japan and now Norway.

Never paid a single dime out of pocket as a diabetic.

> so wonderful death pods in Canada?

propaganda at it's height.

[DANmode]

Yeah, but those systems won’t hide breaking research like checks notes antioxidants and high-dose Vitamin D from cancer patients, so…

[trollbridge]

Note that a freshly laid off person will usually qualify for generous Medicaid benefits, including in WA state.

[_DeadFred_]

What does 'usually' mean? In my experience 'usually' has never worked in my favor. Say it does, does it kick in immediately? What do they have to do to switch over providers? Does all currently being coveraged treatment just move over to being covered by Medicaid automatically or will they need re-approvals?

If you are saying they are covered either way, why not just have consistent healthcare coverage for them and for everyone, all the time?

[trollbridge]

In my state it would kick in immediately. You would report your current income, which is now $0 since you just lost your job.

Virtually every provider in my state is in-network for the various Medicaid options to choose from, so you would not need to "switch over providers". It's usually better than private insurance.

As far as "why not just have consistent healthcare coverage for them and for everyone, all the time", because it would be very expensive to do so? Medicaid covers poorer Americans (including people who just lost their jobs), not the entire population.

[mindcrime]

(Looking at this from an American centric point-of-view):

The Czar of health-care in the US today is a brain-worm addled, drug-addicted, vaccine-denying, conspiracy mongering, incompetent jackass. And the overall current administration has shown itself to be hostile to basically anyone who isn't a cis-gendered, white, heterosexual, Christian male.

How many of us really trust these people to make good decisions regarding our health-care? A position that they (or their delegates) would find themselves in if we "nationalize health care".

I think this is a classic example of an idea that sounds good on paper, but doesn't survive contact with reality.

[_DeadFred_]

In the UK, it's operated as trusts separate from day to day government. In Canada it's provincially administered. In Australia, Medicare is a national, tax-funded system with independent statutory authorities overseeing parts of it. Germany, France, Japan have social insurance systems.

[rgblambda]

I would imagine individual states would manage their own health services, with the federal government acting as more of a coordinating and standard setting body. At least that's how it works in UK, Spain etc.

[ghurtado]

There's probably no federal agency less related to the issue of nationalized healthcare than the DHHS.

[mindcrime]

Even so, the issues I am referring to go all the way to the top (POTUS) and descend down through everybody in the reporting chain to various degrees. And even for people who are Trump supporters, just ask yourself the question "What happens if the ONE PERSON I HATE MOST gets elected POTUS in a world where I depend on the federal government for health care?"

I know in years past we all though the US government was somewhat immune for really radical swings in direction and what-not, but I think now we have an existence proof that really sudden and radical changes can happen.

[project2501a]

You mean like Jeremy Hunt in the UK?

[ethbr1]

You know CMS is under HHS, right?

[bagels]

What role did you specifically play in your country's nationalization of healthcare?

[cheesecakejava]

Maybe not that person above, but I’ve continually voted in support of it and initiatives to expand it

[eek2121]

Legally, Microsoft, or any company, cannot use any personal factors in determining who to lay off. If they do, they risk a very real lawsuit. All one needs to do is show some evidence of discrimination, and the EEOC doesn't charge a dime, the worst they will do is deny to pursue. If that happens, most private lawyers will take the case on contingency.

This is the reason you see sweeping cuts without regard to age, sex, etc.

There have also been lawsuits in the past that have settled out of court where a company's layoffs appear to overly inflict damage on one class vs. another, even if the intent was not to do that.

I am not defending these companies at ALL btw. I just have a bit of experience in this area due to the legalities, and I wanted to share it.

I am also not saying that companies don't do this, but the smart ones don't, and the smart ones at least try to at least avoid making it look obvious.

[Terr_]

> the EEOC

Which—for the folks not following along aghast at everything—has been sabotaged by recent federal political changes.

https://www.epi.org/blog/trump-is-making-it-easier-for-emplo...

[mschuster91]

> Is that something we require from companies?

In Germany, yes. For mass layoffs, this absolutely has to be considered. In general, the older the employee is, or if the employee has dependents, the more difficult it gets to both fire them or lay them off.

[WalterBright]

Germany's GDP is shrinking.

The regulations that make it hard to lay off someone have an equal and opposite effect of making companies very reluctant to hire. This impedes the efficient allocation of labor, resulting in a poorer GDP.

[monocasa]

It looks like Germany's GDP has increased every year in recent memory except 2009 and 2020.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Germany#Data

[WalterBright]

google [german gdb growth] says: "-0.2% annual change (2024)"

[omnicognate]

The "GDP Growth (Real)" column in the wikipedia article GP linked agrees, but it doesn't tell a story that justifies "Germany's GDP is shrinking".

[_DeadFred_]

"The Stupidity of GDP per Capita"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiymTzsZfoA

How much of this years GDP growth in the USA went to average citizens? What does GDP growth matter if your citizens have zero access to healthcare, can't improve their conditions, can't innovate, can't try new ideas because they are tied to healthcare via their current job?

How much of American GDP growth goes to Billionaires and isn't a useful health metric?

See: Billionaires added record $2.2tn in wealth in 2025 https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/dec/31/billionaires-ad...

[WalterBright]

Billionaires become billionaires by making and selling things people want. Obviously, a lot of people want what they are selling, and think it is worth buying.

[dTal]

That's such an excessively naive, childlike take that it's hard to know where to start. You don't become a billionaire by "making and selling things". That doesn't scale beyond the low millions. You become a billionaire by leveraging existing capital to rearrange bits of the economy in such a way that money flows towards you [note]. Productive output, be it goods or services (which you seem to have forgotten exist) is strictly optional. You think Warren Buffet sits in his garage cranking out widgets? What planet are you on?

[note] For example, you might contrive to purchase the entire supply of some valuable resource with inelastic demand, and then sell it back to people, perhaps at an inflated price.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

I would 100% chose to live in Germany than the USA. GDP is one consideration, but QOL more important.

[WalterBright]

Live wherever you want to!

[hsbauauvhabzb]

That’s an odd response. My point was GDP alone is a poor way to measure a country.

[ghurtado]

Wouldn't that be awesome?

[wahnfrieden]

It is, but more generally. In many other countries, it is not so easy to lay off employees as it is in the US. It is also not necessary that your access to healthcare be contingent to your employer's whims.

[chrishare]

Not at all - it's legal, but it doesn't garner goodwill either.

[mxkopy]

Yes

[dghlsakjg]

Companies don’t have agency. People do. Compassion is a cross cultural value. Including amongst those that run companies.

For the most part none of us has any “required” obligation to anyone else.

Is it something we require of companies? No. But being a responsible, compassionate human being that considers the totality of circumstance is something I expect of that company’s leaders. Especially a company that has the money and need for technical skills elsewhere in the org.

The golden rule does not stop being true just because you are at work.

Preemptively: duty to shareholders is broader than short term profit maximizing. Avoiding bad PR like this is also in the service of MS shareholders.

As a side note: Nadella moved his home to Canada, while working at MS, so his special needs kid could go to a specialist school. That is absolutely the right choice. The argument that MS should not consider the health of their employees children is horseshit when they allow the CEO to set up house hours away in a different country for that exact reason.

At the end of the day, a kid suffered unnecessarily through no fault of his parents or his own.

[bowsamic]

Yes I’d say that such people should get extra protections

[kwanbix]

In europe (at least in Germany), they do get extra protection.

[CrimsonRain]

And that's why people think 5 times before hiring such. It's already super hard to fire people unless they make gross mistakes. It's nearly impossible to fire someone like that. It's stupid.

[kakacik]

Its not stupid rather humane, just very ineffective from economical perspective.

You want society where its everybody for themselves, fuck the rest, be lucky with ie your health so you and your family can have a decent life and one problem big enough can wipe you out? The benefit is more money, economy works better, is more agile to ever-changing situation. Just those extra money often go to that healthcare (since we all end up with various issues over time, the only exception is early death), or university for kids, or cost of properties.

Or something glacial, without real pressure to improve, more poor, but with additional safety nets.

I keep saying it over and over - EU should take over system (and mindset, good luck there) of Swiss folks. They strike the best balance between predatory capitalism that often grinds unlucky individuals and various safety nets (free top notch public education, almost free public healthcare, very good but not ridiculous social system etc). Unsurprisingly, mix of European competency and a bit of proper capitalism creates one of best stable living standards in the world, and arguably still The most free nation in the world (TM).

Its a place that french or germans just can't swallow - neighbor showing them how much better a similar society can end up functioning with few rather minor tweaks.

[rvba]

In a thread about US company firing QA (in USA) we see an anti EU rant that sounds like russian propaganda.

[CrimsonRain]

it is stupid because it leaves the company holding the bag.

The state can take over for such cases but instead, once a company hires such a person, they can become permanent leeches. Even when the company is having trouble with market/financials, it is difficult to cut.

> You want society where its everybody for themselves

Never said that.

> be lucky with ie your health so you and your family can have a decent life and one problem big enough can wipe you out?

How about working hard and taking care of health? How about not drinking/smoking, not doing drugs, and eating healthy?

> fuck the rest

Yes, fuck the ones who don't take care of health (and I'm not talking about homeless people) and then overburden the healthcare system. Why should we have to carry the weight of the trash humans? Why should one have to pay €1000+ every month for insurance, get cigarette smoke on face (of infant) while walking around in public places, and then watch these people drain healthcare?

[jasomill]

In the US at least, there are needs-based high-risk insurance programs run by states that do just that.

Even so, while it's not a good argument against layoffs, the fact that it's even considered as such is in itself a reasonable argument against health care being tied to specific employment.

[bsimpson]

There's a long-circulating mind virus that makes executives believe top-tier engineers don't need their software tested.

Google's QA is pitiful too.

[ahartmetz]

In case of some recent Windows parts, that would need to be compounded by the mistaken belief to have top-tier engineers working for them.

[Seattle3503]

It's always the departments that are closest to the customer that pay the price in my experience. At one company, after killing QA, the support team created their own internal QA process. They were going to deal with the issues anyways, so they wanted to catch as many as they could first.

[hnthrowaway0328]

They have long adopted the mindset to get users as free beta testers. Long gone the tradition that quality matters.

[AstroNutt]

Jerry Berg is the person you're probably thinking of. His YouTube channel is Barnacules Nerdgasm.

He's a super smart programmer, but seems to be suffering from depression since Microsoft laid him off. He often talks about his issues when he livestreams Tech Talk on Saturdays.

[csdreamer7]

> Jerry Berg is the person you're probably thinking of. His YouTube channel is Barnacules Nerdgasm.

Ty, that is him.

[GuB-42]

Well, you have two distinct problems here.

One is Microsoft releasing shitty software.

The other is a deeper societal problem with healthcare and loyalty between companies and their employees.

For me, they are unrelated problems. In a welfare state, the QA team may have been reaffected to some other tasks within the company and have the health benefits provided by the state, but it wouldn't have made the software less shitty.

[SlightlyLeftPad]

Was he the reason shift-left hit mainstream? Recently, smaller non-faang companies followed suit and fired all the qa people. DevOps/SRE people are likely next.

[WalterBright]

COBRA enables one to continue with the employer's insurance for up to 18 months after a layoff.

[trollbridge]

Yes, because it’s easy to afford $2000 or $3000 a month when you just got laid off.

[WalterBright]

Microsoft pays well. The prudent move is to not increase spending until saving up at a bare minimum 6 months of "runway".

I live in Washington. My accountant told me stories, one of which was a Microsoftian who got the big job, and promptly bought the most expensive house he could swing. He soon ran into trouble because he didn't have enough left to pay the property tax, and was forced to sell it.

BTW, Microsoft has unusually generous benefits for autism. Many autism clinics have sprouted up around the campus to take advantage of that.

Never, ever, EVER assume that a high paying job is a guarantee for life.

[csdreamer7]

> Microsoft pays well. The prudent move is to not increase spending until saving up at a bare minimum 6 months of "runway".

> I live in Washington. My accountant told me stories, one of which was a Microsoftian who got the big job, and promptly bought the most expensive house he could swing. He soon ran into trouble because he didn't have enough left to pay the property tax, and was forced to sell it.

> Never, ever, EVER assume that a high paying job is a guarantee for life.

I do not know why you wrote this. This wasn't a guy who blew all his money on a big house and was forced to sell it when he lost his job.

The guy's kid was born with a low functioning level of Autism that required expensive therapy to treat. You do not choose that. He had savings, but he may be taking care of the kid for the rest of his life. What is he suppose to do? Eat ramen to save up 40 years of out of pocket therapy treatment when he was fired from a position that Microsoft should have kept? No, that is ridiculous.

[WalterBright]

The point was when you get a high paying job, the first order of business is to build up savings because jobs are not guaranteed for life. 6 months of runway gives one time to find another position.

[csdreamer7]

> The point was when you get a high paying job, the first order of business is to build up savings because jobs are not guaranteed for life. 6 months of runway gives one time to find another position.

That applies to 'any' job and is besides the point since I mentioned above he did keep savings. Your comments comes off as insensitive since few jobs will make up for the generous Autism therapy benefit.