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.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy