Epic Lays Off An Employee With Terminal Brain Cancer Who Can’t Get Life Insurance Now

https://kotaku.com/epic-games-layoffs-fortnite-brain-cancer-2000682941

According to Tim Sweeney's tweet from five minutes ago,

Epic is in contact with the family and will solve the insurance for them. There is high confidentiality around medical information and it was not a factor in this layoff decision. Sorry to everyone for not recognizing this terribly painful situation and handling it in advance.

161 points · 10 comments · view on lemmy.world

10 Comments

jws_shadotak@sh.itjust.works · 38 pts · 144d (1 reply)

Pretty reasonable response from them after finding out about it.

Krono@lemmy.today · 27 pts · 144d

Of course it's a good response.

Epic is a $20+ billion dollar company, they definitely hired an expensive PR crisis firm to handle public communications.

ElectricAirship@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 23 pts · 144d (2 replies)

Idk if this is in the US, but its a pretty common thing. I have personal experience with an employer cutting insurance for a family member when they were dying of cancer

chiliedogg@lemmy.world · 32 pts · 144d (1 reply)

That's the cruelest thing about our insurance system. When you get really sick and can no longer work, you also lose coverage.

Milksteaks@midwest.social · 6 pts · 144d

The cruelty is the point

Akasazh@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 144d

The word epic is really eroding the last couple of weeks.

skozzii@lemmy.ca · 14 pts · 144d (1 reply)

What kind of 3rd world country has medical insurance based off employment? The developed world has this sorted out.

87Six@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 143d

Well Romania does, if you want to check the level of American healthcare.

And still our healthcare here is better. And at least we don't pay 10x for medications.

xSikes@feddit.online · 5 pts · 144d

It’s the same amount of care as they have for their customers. Support indie developers

snackwifi@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 144d

This is a bad response. He’s ambiguous on if epic will continue to pay for their insurance. Solve could just mean sending the employee COBRA info