President Obama announced he will allow insurers to extend their current policies that were cancelled under the health care law for one year. Is this a good idea? Next, how much ethanol must be blended into gasoline and diesel fuel in 2014? Then, are you more likely to buy a product because it has an 'all natural' label? Should there more guidelines on what foods can call themselves 'natural?' Next, we discuss the next generation of mobile messaging, and a new poll that reveals Americans' gender preference for a boss. Lastly, we talk with author Stephen Kinzer about famous brothers in politics.
ACA Rollout to ACA Rollback?: President Obama allows old health plans for one more year
President Obama allows old health plans for one more year: President Barack Obama announced today that insurance companies will be allowed to extend for one year the health plans for those consumers who received cancellation notices about their policies.
The administration has come under fire recently about the number of Americans whose policies had been cancelled because they don't meet the requirements of the new health care law. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress had been calling on the president to keep his promise to allow Americans to keep health plans that they liked.
State insurance commissioners will have the final say over whether insurance companies will allowed to extend these policies through 2014. The new plan is likely going to cause some headaches for the insurance industry who will now have to deal with extending policies they thought were cancelled.
How are insurance companies reacting to this news? Will this cause more confusion for consumers who will eventually have to change policies anyway? Will this add to the cost of the ACA in general?
Guests:
Reid Epstein, White House Reporter for POLITICO
Denise Lombard, health insurance broker for Denise Lombard Insurance Services based in Oakland
J.B. Silvers, Professor of Health Care Finance at the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He is also the former President and Chief Executive Officer of QualChoice – a health plan and insurance company in Cleveland.
Should the EPA lower the amount of ethanol in gasoline?
The Environmental Protection Agency could announce as early as this week how much ethanol must be blended into gasoline and diesel fuel in 2014. A draft of the proposal, leaked in October, points to a reduction of the so-called ethanol mandate by the EPA to 2012 levels, to 15.21 billion gallons.
A 2007 law had set the 2014 mandate at 18.15 billion gallons.The ethanol mandate was created by Congress in 2005 and strengthened in 2007. In the U.S., the biofuel is made mostly from corn. The oil industry has long been fighting to repeal the mandate.
But the anti-ethanol camp also includes many environmentalists, who point to the negative impact corn ethanol production causes the environment. Ethanol industry groups equate the mandate reduction to a subsidy for Big Oil. Should the ethanol mandate be slashed?
Guests:
Geoff Cooper, Vice President of Research and Analysis at the Renewable Fuels Association, the leading trade group for the American ethanol industry based in D.C.
Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, a nonprofit watchdog organization in D.C.
Should processed foods be allowed to call themselves 'all natural'?
Does an 'all natural' label make you more likely to buy a product? Many consumers think a 'natural' or 'all natural' label means those products are less processed but that's not always true. Unlike the "organic" designation, there are no federal guidelines for which food products can be labeled as natural.
Food manufacturers from PepsiCo to Pepperidge Farm have quietly stopped using the term after being slapped with lawsuits that allege the term is misleading to customers. Kid-friendly Goldfish crackers will no longer have the label of "natural" after Pepperidge Farm was targeted in a class action lawsuit this summer.
Pepsi-Co came under fire for releasing a marketing campaign for it's Frito-Lay division, which put an "all natural" label on Lay's potato chips, SunChips and Rold Gold pretzels. The company was hit with lawsuits that allege the snacks actually contained GMOs and additives including caramel color, citric acid and malodextrin.
Should the FDA come up with a set standard for the term "natural" like it does for organic foods? Should companies be allowed to label their foods as 'natural' if they contain preservatives or GMOs? Without a designation of what 'natural' means, can't almost anything be considered natural?
Guests:
Steve Gardner, litigation director for Center for Science in the Public Interest
Baylen Linnekin, attorney and executive director of Keep Food Legal, a non-profit that advocates for food freedom
Mark Lacter, LA business reporter and KPCC contributor, dies
Mark Lacter who covered business for LA Observed since 2006 passed away. In his career he was also a commentator for KPCC, and a columnist at LA Magazine. Lacter suffered from a stroke.
Guest:
Steve Julian, KPCC's host for Morning Edition
Snapchat, Kik, WhatsApp: The new generation of mobile messaging
Snapchat, a popular photo messaging app, reportedly turned down a $3 billion offer from Facebook to buy the company, according to the Wall Street Journal. The application lets users take and send pictures to friends that expire within 10 seconds or less.
Facebook’s offer to the 2-year-old company comes at a time when people are flocking away from the site with the emergence of new social media and messaging systems. Last month, Facebook’s CFO admitted the site was seeing a decrease in daily users.
What other messaging apps are young people using? With all the messengers teens and young adults can use—Facebook, Twitter, Kik, Snapchat, Cubie, Hike, etc.—what factors determine whether these apps will be successful? And what is it about Snapchat that allowed its 23-year-old founder to turn down $3 billion?
Guest:
Charlie Warzel, a Deputy Editor at Buzzfeed
Do you prefer a male or female boss? (Poll)
A new Gallup poll reveals that Americans still prefer a male boss. Thirty-five percent of respondents preferred a male boss, while only 23 percent preferred a female boss. The poll survey over two thousand adults.
When Gallup first asked the question in 1953, 66 percent of Americans would rather have a male boss, and only 5 percent would rather work with a woman. In the recent survey, four out of 10 Americans do not care either way what the boss’s gender is.
While both men and women overall preferred a male boss, women were more likely to have a preference.
Who do prefer to have as your boss? What has been your experience with a male or female boss? Do you think it matters? Do you think people have different standards for a female boss?
Guests:
BJ Gallagher , sociologist, workplace consultant and author of the book “A Peacock in the Land of Penguins,” about how managers can understand and maximize the potential of a diverse workforce.
KPCC's online polls are not scientific surveys of local or national opinion. Rather, they are designed as a way for our audience members to engage with each other and share their views. Let us know what you think on our Facebook page, facebook.com/kpcc, or in the comments below.
The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War
American political history is filled with famous brothers. The Kennedys. The Bushes. The Kochs. In “The Brothers,” author and veteran New York Times reporter Stephen Kinzer casts the spotlight on John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, the secretary of state and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, respectively, under the Eisenhower Administration.
The Dulles brothers headed violent campaigns against foreign leaders they saw as threats to the United States, and set the stage for the country’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The book is a biography of the Dulles brothers as well as that of modern America. Through the lives of the John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, Kinzer examines how our country became what it has become.
Guest:
Stephen Kinzer, author of “The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War” (Times Book, October 2013) and is a veteran New York Times correspondent.