Tim Armstrong, asshole.

Tim Armstrong, asshole.

Did you know that not only does AOL still exist, but it's successful enough that its CEO Tim Armstrong made $12.1 million in 2012? Did you also know that Tim Armstrong is a raging asshole?

AOL has decided that it will cut back its contributions to employees' 401(k)s. When employees complained about this fact in an open letter to Armstrong, he responded by telling employees it was Obamacare's fault. Oh, and those two women who are your co-workers who had sick babies last year. Yes, that's how much of an asshole he is.



"As a CEO and as a management team, we have to decide: Do we pass the $7.1 million of Obamacare cost to our employees? Or do we try to eat as much of that as possible and cut benefits?," said Armstrong in the CNBC interview.

"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," said Armstrong, according to a transcript first obtained by Capital New York. "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."

Ok, let's stop here for a bit. $7.1 million in increased Obamacare costs? How? AOL is a huge company, which provided health insurance benefits to employees before Obamacare. Since it was already offering benefits, it didn't come under the employer mandate (which doesn't go into effect for another year, anyway). So Armstrong would have to be asserting that Cigna, their provider, decided to charge AOL $7.1 million more this year for health insurance? Because of Obamacare? Bullshit. Perhaps understanding that this sounded like bullshit, Armstrong dug deeper, blaming the increase—and this is really assholish—on two employees.So, how did AOL pay a million dollars for each baby? Distress payments to the parents? Because AOL's insurance company would have covered the medical costs, which is what insurance companies do. Is Armstrong now blaming a $7.1 million increase in health insurance costs for the whole company on two employees? Once again, bullshit.

By the way, on the same day this all went down, AOL sent a press release titled "AOL delivers strongest revenue growth in a decade." Assholes.

Follow me below the fold for AOL's pathetic attempt at damage control.