Mandating Health Care Hitch
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Virginia is poised this week to become the first state to make it illegal to require individuals to purchase health insurance, an idea which is a central part of Democrats’ health care reform plans in Washington. We speak with Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post.
Regulating The Financial Industry
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A new poll shows that two-thirds of Americans have an unfavorable view of major banks and financial institutions. We speak to Rep. Barney Frank, (D-MA) and chair of the House Financial Services Committee, about the need to create regulations that are transparent.
Paul Farmer On Haiti
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Paul Farmer is the co-founder of Partners in Health and a United Nations Deputy Special Envoy for Haiti. We speak to him about rebuilding Haiti after January’s massive earthquake, as Haitian President Rene Preval visits the US.
Iraq Elections
Supporters of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr celebrate on the streets of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq today (AP)
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We talk with the BBC’s Dan Damon about yesterday’s parliamentary election in Iraq. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s “State of Law” coalition appears to have won the most seats, but not enough to form a government without some coalition building among rival factions.
Saving Energy
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Last week, President Obama announced a $6B program that would give people incentives to make their homes more energy efficient. He also hopes the program will create jobs. We speak to Richard Burbank of Evergreen Home Performance in Rockland Maine.
Kathryn Bigelow
Kathryn Bigelow with the Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture (AP)
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Bigelow is the first woman in the Academy Award’s 82-year history to win the Best Director award. We revisit our conversation with her when “The Hurt Locker,” which also received the Best Picture award, first came out.
Music From The Show
- Galactic, “Kid Kenner”
- Talia Zedek Band, “We Don’t Go”
- Radiohead, “Nude”
- Formigia, “No Twist”
- Den Fule, “Legless Lizard”
- Joy Division, “Candidate”
- The Bad Plus, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Nirvana
- Squarepusher, “My Sound”
- Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders, “The Way I Am”
Virginia will not rest on Law Profs. opinions because they do not sit on the Court. That’s part of the media effect Mr Frank talked about today.
With respect on the other topic, every time Mr Frank targets the banks they just seem to charge customers an extra fee.
Posted by Roger, on March 8th, 2010 at 12:30 pmAlaska has been experimenting with subsidies for home energy saving improvements. Homeowners need to get a before energy audit and a post energy audit. The state reimburses part of the cost of those audits. One can also get reimbursed for some of the cost depending on how much the modifications improve the homes rating.
Posted by Jim, on March 8th, 2010 at 12:46 pmIt does not reimburse the whole cost so I’m not sure that’s a large inducement. For instance we went through the program and the state will reimburse us for about 10% of the total cost. After the work was done our house received highest rating. But the total cost was almost as much as we had paid for the house 30 years ago.
On the positive side we have reduced our fuel oil usage by about 40% based on oil used per heating degree day.
The states program provided the impetus for us to finally do things that we knew needed to be done.
The program is obviously popular in Alaska since there is a long waiting list for getting an energy audit done.
Does bringing down the cost of health care INSURANCE equate to bringing down the cost of health care? Because mandating that healthy people purchase health insurance only brings down the cost of the insurance…not the care itself. The problem is that people always want the “cadillac” care but don’t want the “cadillac” cost. Somehow we have to link the cost of health care with peoples pocketbook. Until we do that, I see no incentive to keeping costs down.
Posted by Ambrose, on March 8th, 2010 at 3:36 pm