Today on Air Talk we'll discuss the GOPs plan for Medi-Cal, why the IOC and the Olympic athletes are at odds over sponsorships, the case of journalist Jonah Lehrer, NBCs newest show "Stars Earns Stripes," what a psychiatrists responsibility to the public good if they have a possibly dangerous patient and a conversation with author Blaine Harden about his new book "Escape From Camp 14." Plus, the latest news.
Congressional Republicans aim to slash millions from Medicaid
If Republicans win both the White House and Congress this fall, it could mean drastic changes to the Medicaid program as Americans have known it for decades. What started as a way to deliver health insurance to the poor, disabled and elderly under President Lyndon Johnson has now become a political lightning rod for Democrats and Republicans.
Conservative activists are pushing Congress to transform Medicaid into a block-grant program, a plan which draws support from GOP candidate Mitt Romney. In this scenario, Medicaid would cease being a federal program, and power for determining fund allocation, program design and eligibility for services would fall to the states themselves. All told, such a change would reduce federal spending on Medicaid by $1.5 trillion in ten years.
Conservatives have longed for such a shift in policy for decades, but even some members of the Republican Party are wary that states would be unable to come up with the amount of money needed to deal with a population which is not going to significantly decrease in size. Democrats and healthcare providers point out that slashing Medicaid will only result in a massive increase in the uninsured. Meanwhile, a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 67 percent of Americans support a Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act.
Does the Republican plan have any real legs? If so, what would it mean for individual states, particularly California? How would you see your own coverage change under a block-grant program?
Guests:
Gerald F. Kominski, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Health Services, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health; Director, UCLA Center for Health Policy Research
Dustin Corcoran, CEO of the California Medical Association
Olympic athletes want more buck for their bang
All eyes are on the Olympics, and by default, on ads for Coca-Cola, McDonalds and Ralph Lauren. And billions of dollars in ad revenue is changing hands.
The debate over whether Olympic athletes should share in the wealth is not a new one. The years of training, equipment and travel expenses are a hardship for those with the dedication to qualify. Now athletes lucky enough to have a corporate sponsor are speaking out against Rule 40, the section of the Olympic Charter that forbids them from promoting their sponsors through tweeting, blogging, or displaying logos or symbols during the Olympics.
According to sprinter Sanya Richards-Ross, only 2% of Team U.S.A. are allowed to acknowledge their sponsors, because they are Olympic sponsors as well. Richards-Ross and a number of her fellow athletes have been tweeting about this issue under the hashtag #WeDemandChange #rule40, and spoke about it at a news conference Monday.
Others have been both vocal and innovative: runner Nick Symmonds, a critic of the Olympic ad prohibition, auctioned off space on his arm and raised over $11,000 for wearing the logo of a design & marketing company. In compliance with Rule 40, he’ll cover the logo with tape when he competes in London.
Corporate sponsors shell out big bucks for exclusivity at the Olympics, and understandably don’t want to share the real estate. But as Richards-Ross and others argue, many athletes struggle to realize their Olympic dreams. Allowing them to court their own sponsors, they say, would lift all boats.
Should athletes be allowed to promote their sponsors at the games? Should they be paid for participating, as some have suggested? Or is the glory of representing their country in the world’s most prominent arena its own reward?
Guest:
Paul Swangard, Woodard Family Foundation Fellow and Managing Director, Warsaw Sports Marketing Center, University of Oregon
The curious case of Jonah Lehrer
Author and journalist Jonah Lehrer has resigned from his position as staff writer for The New Yorker amidst controversy surrounding the originality of his work.
In June, Lehrer apologized for recycling his own work in articles and his book, but the real shock came when he admitted to fabricating Bob Dylan quotes in his non-fiction book, Imagine: How Creativity Works.
Lehrer is not alone, though – journalists have done this before. Some notable examples are Jayson Blair of the New York Times and Stephen Glass of The New Republic who plagiarized quotes, fabricated content, and even made up entire stories, as was the issue in Glass’ case.
Why would a journalist do such a thing? Why does this continue to happen, and what could it mean for the future of fact-checking and journalism as a whole?
Guests:
David Folkenflik, Media Correspondent, NPR
Geneva Overholser, Director, USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism
The ‘reality’ of military training comes to prime time
“Live ammo! Real explosives! Real danger!” So promises retired General Wesley Clark, the host of NBC’s newest reality show, in the trailer for “Stars Earn Stripes.”
In the show, celebrities including actor Dean Cain, WWE Divas champion Eva Torres and snowmobile racer Todd Palin pair up with U.S. military personnel to compete at war-like tasks like long-range weapons fire, jumping out of helicopters and blowing things up.
The program, produced by Dick Wolf ("Law & Order,"), Mark Burnett ("The Apprentice, "Survivor") and David A. Hurwitz ("Fear Factor") premieres August 13th and is being heavily promoted during the Olympics. But unlike actual war, viewers can presume no one will be killed, wounded or end up with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The activist group Roots Action is petitioning NBC to go further in depicting the “reality” of war. They want the network to air “an in-depth segment showing the reality of civilian victims of recent U.S. wars, on any program, any time in the coming months.” War is not a game, nor is it entertainment, they say, and shouldn’t be depicted as such.
NBC describes the show as “an action-packed competition show that pays homage to the men and women who serve in the U.S. Armed Forces and our first-responder services.” Their website touts its policy of hiring returned veterans and says it hopes to inspire a similar commitment by other employers. And the teams compete for cash prizes on behalf of military-based charities. So, does all that justify the premise?
In the world of reality television, does this go too far? Do you find it disrespectful to show celebrities “playing soldier?” Or do you see it as a good way to spotlight the challenges facing our armed forces? And should networks be doing more to depict the harsh reality and the cost of war?
Guest:
David Swanson, campaigner for Roots Action
Hal Kempfer, Retired Marine Lt. Colonel and CEO of KIPP, Knowledge & Intelligence Program Professionals
What if a therapist sees danger signs?
Court documents in the Colorado massacre case show the suspect was seeing a psychiatrist. Dr. Lynne Fenton of the University of Colorado specializes in schizophrenia and is medical director of student mental health services.
Some are asking whether it’s possible she saw signs that James Eagan Holmes was dangerous. A question that will likely emerge during the investigation and trial is whether she could have warned police he had psychotic tendencies.
The American Psychiatric Association cautions the public on this issue. Its official position says, "[Psychiatrists] cannot predict dangerousness with definitive accuracy. Over any given period some individuals assessed to be at low risk will act violently while others assessed to be at high risk will not."
What types of patients or behaviors are therapists required to report? Could random acts of violence be averted with different reporting rules? How often do mental health professionals loop in law enforcement on problematic patients? What are the rules around that process?
Guest:
Dr. Renee Binder, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry & Director, Psychiatry and the Law program, University of California, San Francisco; Member of the Workgroup on Violence Risk, American Psychiatric Association
Escape from Camp 14
Even though North Korea’s government won’t admit they exist, the country’s prison camps can be seen via satellite imagery. The camps hold nearly 200,000 prisoners which receive lifelong punishment, work for over twelve hours a day, withstand various means of torture and dozens of them die on a daily basis due to chronic malnourishment.
Families serve time together, and children who are born into the camps never know a life beyond the prison walls. That is, except for the lone case of Shin Dong-hyuk, the only known case of someone born in a no-exit camp to escape and survive. In Blaine Harden’s new book “Escape from Camp 14,” he tells the story of how Shin made it over an electric fence by climbing over the corpse of a dead inmate, escaped into China and eventually found his way to the United States. Harden not only focuses on Shin’s struggle, but expands his story to an exploration and commentary of North Korea’s totalitarian government, isolation from other countries and extreme secrecy.
How did Shin escape from North Korea in the first place? What was his life like inside the prison? How did he adjust to the outside world? What is North Korea’s response to his story?
Guest:
Blaine Harden, author, “Escape From Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey From North Korea to Freedom in the West” (Viking Press) Blaine is a contributor to The Economist, Frontline on PBS and former Washington Post bureau chief in East Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa.