Day two of SCOTUS hearings on healthcare law. Plus, more working women are becoming primary breadwinners for their families. What are the societal implications of this trend?
SCOTUS hearings on healthcare, day 2
Today’s arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on the fate of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, the second of three days of hearings on the health care overhaul, mainly tackles the constitutionality of the individual insurance mandate. The requirement dictates almost all Americans buy health insurance in 2014 or pay a penalty when they file their 2014 income taxes in early 2015.
Justices on Wednesday will hear debates on whether the rest of the law can take effect even if the individual insurance mandate is unconstitutional, and also arguments over expansion of the Medicaid program for lower-income people.
Did Congress overstep its authority by requiring Americans to obtain health insurance starting in 2014 or face a penalty? Can the healthcare law work without the individual mandate?
Guests:
Kitty Felde, KPCC’s Washington D.C. Correspondent, covering the SCOTUS hearings on the Affordable Care Act
Gregory Warner, Senior Reporter for Marketplace, covering healthcare
Lisa McElroy, Professor of Law, Drexel University's Earle Mack School of Law & Supreme Court scholar
Erwin Chemerinksy, Founding Dean, UC Irvine School of Law
Anthony Thomas Caso, Associate Clinical Professor, Chapman University School of Law; Director of the Constitutional Jurisprudence Center, which files amicus briefs challenging the constitutionality of the healthcare individual mandate
More women are becoming primary breadwinners
Almost 40 percent of American working wives now out-earn their husbands. If this trend persists, women may over take men as the primary breadwinners in a generation.
In her new book “The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners is Transforming Sex, Love and Family” (Simon & Shuster), Washington Post reporter Liza Mundy charts the social and cultural ripples that will accompany this shift in income. Mundy proposes that instead of resisting the change, we should all embrace it. Many of the men she interviewed whose wives were the main breadwinners enjoyed their stay-at-home status, the intensity of hands-on parenting, and even became competitive as they honed their domestic skills.
Mundy contends that men are seeking women with equal or superior educational and earning levels, and women’s economic power unleashes their own sexual energy and self-confidence. Women, she found, are still nervous about assuming the role of primary provider, and fear that high ambition comes across as masculine.
How will relationships evolve to cope with this economic shift? As a woman who earns more, how do you feel about being the primary bread winner? As a man who earns less than your wife, girlfriend or partner, what challenges do you face, and what are the benefits?
Guest:
Liza Mundy, Washington Post writer, and author of “The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners is Transforming Sex, Love and Family” (Simon & Shuster)