Friday we talk to local marionette legend Bob Baker on turning 90. Also, we find out what the Affordable Care Act addiction coverage means. Plus, despite rain, some California communities could soon run out of water. We also have Friday Flashback, a discussion with the LEGO movie's director and writer team and much more.
Affordable Care Act expands coverage for addiction treatment
The death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman has focused national attention on addiction issues and how things are changing under the Affordable Care Act.
On January first, the federal law expanded coverage for treatment of drug and alcohol addictions. We have KPCC Health Care Correspondent Stephanie O’Neill here to fill us in on all of this. Hey Stephanie…
TT: So there are some changes now happening…but to put it in perspective, can you tell us a bit about the addiction treatment landscape before the New Year rolled around?
SO: Before the Affordable Care Act took effect, about a third of those who bought a health plan in the individual market had no coverage for addiction treatment, according to Health & Human Services.
Then, even when a plan did provide the coverage, it was typically with more financial and other restrictions than was required for medical and surgical care. So the addiction coverage lacked what’s known as “parity” with treatment for medical issues.
TT: And now, things have changed…. Under Obamacare, I understand that a lot more people will have access to substance abuse treatments. Tell us about that.
SS: Right. There are two big factors that are greatly expanding addiction coverage nationwide.
First: As of New Years Day, the individual market health plans and the small group health plans sold inside and outside the state run marketplaces -- are required to provide ten Essential Health Benefit categories – which include care for substance abuse. And in addition to the requirement that the plan provide it to consumers, …because it’s classified as an “essential health benefit” an insurer cannot impose an annual or lifetime limit on how much they’ll pay for that treatment – as long as the treatment is deemed medically necessary.
Second: The plans are now governed by a federal law called the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008. That law requires health plans that cover addiction treatment – which again is all the new plans under the ACA - to cover it to the same extent that they cover a patient’s medical and surgical needs. So that means an insurer can’t impose stuff like higher copays or cost sharing on addiction coverage than they would for medical coverage under the same policy. And it also means that plans must use the same prior authorization process for substance abuse treatment as they would for medical services. So one can’t be more restrictive than the other.
TT: Which addiction services are now covered through insurance plans sold in California?
SO: In California, the coverage includes both inpatient and outpatient services – so inpatient detox at a residential facility is included. Then there’s outpatient care such as day-treatment; intensive outpatient programs – those are programs that serve a patient three hours a day, at least three days a week; then there’s individual and group counseling and medical care for withdrawal symptoms. So those are the broad categories of service and then within each category the insurer gets to determine the specifics, like which providers they send consumers to, which treatment centers and the brands of medications they cover.
TT: Any idea how much someone would pay for these services?
SO: That will vary. The amount you’ll pay for deductible, co-payments and other cost-sharing for the treatment will depend on the metal tier of the insurance plan you choose – from the lowest-end Bronze plan to the highest end Platinum plan, which has the highest monthly premium.Generally, the higher the tier – like gold or Platinum - the less the consumer will pay for the substance abuse treatment.
TT: What about people on Medi-Cal?
SO: Under the ACA, you’re eligible for Medi-Cal if you make less than about $16,000 a year.
And under Medi-Cal, there’s a separately-funded program for substance abuse that’s known as D-M-C, which stands for Drug Medi-Cal. So if a doctor first determines that a Medi-Cal enrollee needs such care, the person would then be sent for treatment to one of more than 1400 Medi-Cal certified treatment facilities statewide.
Some of the new benefits offered through D-M-C include inpatient detox; residential treatment, methadone maintenance, and outpatient counseling.
TT: Is there a limit to how much care a person can get in the Drug Medi-Cal program?
SO: The way it works is the patients will receive services for up to six months…and if the counselor or doctor determines that it should last longer, they need to document that for every additional six month-period. So it can go for substantially longer than a year, if needed.
California's experimental senior health management causes confusion
Now to a story about the health management of senior citizens.
A new experiment in California is creating some confusion.
The California Report's April Dembosky explains.
Hash extraction techniques send scores to emergency rooms
There have been plenty of reports about the dangers of manufacturing meth. But now, physicians are seeing patients with terrible burns incurred from working with marijuana. They're manufacturing a product called butane hash.
KPCC began reporting the trend in March 2013, Vice Media posted a hash oil video last July and NPR picked up the story earlier this year.
For more on what this is and why it's so dangerous to make, we turn to Joe Mozingo of the LA Times who recently wrote about it.
Friday Flashback: Sochi Olympics, Leno's last show and better jobs numbers
In this week's Friday Flashback LA Times columnist James Rainey and Buzzfeed breaking news reporter Adrian Carrasquillo talk Sochi Olympics, Jay Leno's last show and the good job numbers out today. We also take a longview look at how the media is treating the big stories this week about Dylan Farrow and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Sochi: Winter Olympics open in Russia
The opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics kicked off today in Sochi, Russia.
But they're also taking place under strict rules on public protest and demonstrations.
For more, we're joined by NPR's Sonari Glinton in Sochi.
'The Lego Movie': Writer and director share about film
From sport to film... It used to be that if you saw toys in a movie, they were just props or product placement.
But in one highly anticipated feature the toys are the stars.
This weekend the highly anticipated film "The Lego Movie" hits the silver screen.
It's a story of a Lego figure named Emmet, voiced by Chris Pratt.
His life seems pretty ordinary and carefully laid out by a set of instructions, which look a lot like what you'd find in a Lego box.
But when it comes to making a movie about Legos, there are no instructions to follow.
Something Phil Lord and Christopher Miller know all too well -- they wrote and directed the Lego movie.
These two have a knack for making unconventional and enjoyable movies where most would expect the opposite.
They also are the duo behind "21 Jump Street" and "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs."
I recently had the chance to chat with them and we began by talking about why anyone would want to do a movie about Legos.
CM: That’s a great question. Toy movies are usually pretty terrible. That’s what we thought at first. The producers said, We are working on the rights to this brand and would you like to make a movie and we said No, we don’t think it’s a good idea.
But we both loved Lego as kids and we had seen a bunch of these brick films online and we started watching them again —fan films, little stop motion shorts people make in their basement an post on to YouTube. They are really, really creative.
PL: We started to feel like, Oh this isn’t a big corporate project. This is like a grassroots movement and maybe we could use a big commercial movie as like a Trojan horse to bring all of this grassroots creativity onto a big screen.
On building a Lego world for the film:
CM: There’s obviously an enormous crew of people, about 250 people in Australia. Most of the movie is actually CG made to look like real Lego bricks. But we were very insistent that it be so real that you feel like it’s a Lego set come to life. There’s also real stop motion in it and a lot of real Lego stuff comped in as well. But we don’t anyone to know what's real and what isn’t.
On creating unique things like Lego smoke and water:
PL: The Lego shower was really complicated because the Lego drops are just too big. Like one drop of water is as big as someone’s head. But then we figured if we took a Lego flower arrangement and turned it clear then that would sort of look like a shower. And there were a lot of little solutions like that. The Lego builders in Denmark and folks at home are constantly thinking of those kinds of solutions.
On taking liberties with characters like Batman and the Green Lantern:
PL: I think that was part of our original take on it was we need to play as fast and loose with these classic characters as a child would and Batman is so inspiring because he’s the best rich douchey boyfriend you could ever hope to have. That’s the biggest hill to climb if there’s a girl you’re trying to date.
On Lego’s response and role in the film:
CM: They have (seen it) and they liked it, thank goodness. They are a really successful company and are having huge growth even in a down economy so they didn’t really need a movie. They didn’t really want a movie even. There were a lot of people that saw the movie and then said, ‘I was against it but now I’m super happy.’
We went to them and said the only way this is going to work is if it doesn’t feel like it is coming from you guys at all. You’re going to need to hand us the keys really and let us make a movie because it needs to be a film by filmmakers with a point of view and it has to be like clay in a Claymation movie not like, Here’s the Lego corporation’s idea of what a story should be with all the new toys that are coming out on shelves.
They would turn the designs even better and cooler and more structurally sound.
On making a film that appeals to all audiences:
CM: We don’t really approach doing a family movie any differently than we approach doing an R-rated comedy, other than not being able to drop F-bombs.
Somewhere along the way people lose touch or at least lose confidence in their own creativity and sense of play. It was sort of our goal to make people get back in touch with that.
How Philip Seymour Hoffman changed one man's life
Today, a private funeral will be held for actor Philip Seymour Hoffman at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in Manhattan.
The 47-year-old actor is survived by his longtime partner Mimi O'Donnell and their three children. It's those kids that reporter Anthony Breznican has been thinking about this week.
He wrote an essay for Entertainment Weekly titled "The Night Philip Seymour Hoffman changed my life" and we had an opportunity to speak with him about it.
Drought lessons: Teaching kids conservation
So how to cope with a drought like this one?
Of course, one of the best ways is to conserve water.
And one of the best ways to get people to conserve -- teach them when they're young.
Very young.
For more on why and how to do that, we're joined by KPCC's education reporter Mary Plummer.
Drought: California communities could soon run out of water
Despite yesterday's rain, California's dry spell grinds on. Health officials say 17 communities around the state are at risk of running out of water within the next four months, if not sooner. One of those communities is just about an hour north of Los Angeles, the town of Lake of the Woods, perched above the Tejon Pass.
KPCC's Molly Peterson has this report.
For these Southern California teens, learning about the Constitution is a team sport
This is one part in a new KPCC series, Project Citizen, that looks at the rights, responsibilities, traditions and privileges that come along with being a citizen. Let us know what you think.
Some of the world's best athletes will compete this weekend in figure skating, ski jumps and snowboarding. That's in Sochi, the site of the Winter Olympic Games.
But in Arcadia, another group of young people are practicing for their OWN big competition this weekend. KPCC's Adolfo Guzman-Lopez notes the stakes aren't quite as high.
Splitting up chores may slash sex for married couples
A recent report by the American Sociological Review found that more equal distribution of household tasks in a marriage (that did not focus on traditional gender roles) negatively affected their bedroom behavior. But does an equal division of labor in a marriage really slash the amount of sex a couple has?
Lori Gottlieb wrote about this for The New York Times and joins us to discuss.
Inside Bob Baker's Marionette Theatre
If you grew up in Los Angeles, chances are you celebrated at least one birthday at a magical little piece of history called The Bob Baker Marionette Theater.
The theater sits next to a bridge just west of downtown L.A., where 1st and 2nd streets merge with Glendale Blvd. Outside, the nondescript white building doesn't look like much, but inside it's almost like that moment in the "Wizard Of Oz," when everything shifts from black and white to beautiful Technicolor.
There are huge gold stars festooned with tinsel, a long red curtain with yellow fringe. There is no stage per se, just a big blue carpet where the stars of the show waltz around to classic tunes like this one by Cole Porter.
During the show, the marionettes sing, dance and delight audience members by sitting in their laps. There are all sorts of puppets: animals, aliens, vegetable, and vampires. Colorful flower marionettes sing, fluffy cats puppets dance, and then there's the blue velvet and satin Eskimo.
Bob Baker, 89, first opened this theater 51 years ago, but his love of puppets, goes back to the 1930s.
Baker got those puppets and soon he was taking puppetry lessons every day. It wasn't long before he became a marionette master, and by the time he was a teenager, he was producing his own puppet shows.
When he opened up this theater, Baker recalls only two people showed up to the first show. Luckily they loved it and word about Bob Baker quickly spread. Soon he was selling out performances and taking his show on the road.
For years, Baker and his puppets performed everywhere from private Beverly Hills parties to Navy ships on the high seas. But he says some of his favorite performances were those held at his little theater for local students and for kid's birthday parties.
Of course the highlight of the party is the puppet show, which changes over the seasons.
Each one is like a musical review, a collection of songs which all fall under a certain theme, like Halloween Hoop De Do, a farm themed show called Something to Crow about and a Mexican themed one called Fiesta.
For all of these shows, Bob Baker has crafted thousands of puppets using a wide range of materials from fine satin to marabou feathers. He says he gets inspiration from all sorts of sources.
His marionettes are also quite complex. He's rigged them up so the wooden bars and strings do more than just move arms and legs. Take for instance a mouse, who's rigged so even her eyelids move. But making the eyes of a mouse move while she's singing and dancing is no small feat.
These days, it's hard for Bob, too. Aches in his hands make it hard to for him to manipulate the marionettes. He's not as agile on his feet now that he's nearing 90 years old.
Over the years, the theater has seen it's share of hardship too. Though they used to produce a lot of puppets for sale at department stores, there's not much of a market for that anymore. The local schools have run out of money to pay for tickets, so the theater had to foot the bill for school kids to come see shows.
At one point, Bob even sold some of his most famous marionettes to keep the theater afloat, including a beautiful blonde girl puppet named Pequinita who was once serenaded by Elvis Presley in the 1960 film "GI Blues."
Recently, things have been looking a bit better for the theater. The charm of a theater, which has barely changed in more than half a century, is hitting home with nostalgic audiences and folks like Take Two contributor Charles Phoenix.
This Sunday, Charles Phoenix will be hosting a special tribute to the master of marionettes as Bob Baker turns 90 years old. There will be ice cream, and even though it won't be the same kind of ice cream in the little red and white cups Bob Baker used to dish out back in the day, some things haven't changed a bit.
Click here to get tickets to the celebration.
Like Bob's show. The songs are the same, the choreography hasn't changed, and the puppets act out the same sweet, simple stories they've been acting out for more than 70 years.
Bob Baker says he's not quite sure why the theater has been selling out shows once again like they one did. But he has a feeling it might have something to do with the stories they tell.
RELATED: Check out more GIFs from the Bob Baker Marionette Theater on KPCC's AudioVision.