On the News With Thom Hartmann: Radiation Levels at Fukushima Have Reached Their Highest Point Yet

In today’s On the News segment: The Supreme Court has finished hearing arguments about the constitutionality of Obamacare, new study finds only 56 percent of students who enter American universities are able to graduate within six years, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan received a 600 percent increase in his salary from the year before, radiation levels at Fukushima have reached their highest point yet, and more.

TRANSCRIPT

You need to know this. The Supreme Court has finished hearing arguments about the constitutionality of Obamacare – and within the next few months they’ll issue their ruling. Should the five right-wing justices on the high court do what many are expecting them to do, and strike down the individual mandate – then it COULD lead to the end of the for-profit health insurance industry as we know it. That’s because other reforms within Obamacare force insurance companies to accept Americans regardless of pre-existing conditions and also outlaw rescissions – WHERE health insurers drop their customers when they get seriously sick. That means a bunch of sick Americans will flood the private health insurance market, forcing companies to actually pay for care, cutting million-dollar payrolls for health insurance executives, and cutting the fat dividend checks health insurance companies pay their investors. The individual mandate was put in place to protect those private health insurers by giving them a pool of new, healthy, young customers to offset the influx of aging sick customers. So if the court strikes it down – President Obama isn’t the one who’s really screwed – it’s private health insurance companies. And in the irony of all ironies – expect those same private health insurers to begin lobbying the Republican House of Representatives for some sort of mandate to protect them – forcing Republicans to switch sides to please their corporate donors. This fiasco is just getting started – stay tuned.

America’s students are screwed. A new study by Harvard University finds that only 56% of students who enter American universities – are able to graduate within 6 years. Looking at 18 other OECD nation and their college completion rates – the United States ranks dead last – behind nations like Japan, Poland, and Slovakia. The Harvard study pins the low graduation rate on raising college prices that have sextupled since 1985 – driving outstanding student loan debt to over one trillion dollars for the first time in the history of the world. And to kick dirt in the eyes of already struggling students – the Republican budget proposed by Paul Ryan cuts the federal Pell Grant program for college students by $200 billion – ultimately snatching college grants from the hands of more than one million students. So much for trying to obtain a college degree to pursue the American Dream. Students might as well try to get lucky on Friday and hit the lotto jackpot – it’s their only hope of finding success in a nation that’s been ravaged by thirty years of Reaganomics and the destruction of America’s intellectual infrastructure.