"As the bus monitor, your main objective is to make sure that stuff like this doesn't happen on the bus," Waterman said. "I'm wondering why you didn't say something to them and you weren't more aggressive in your action as the bus monitor."

"That's a good question," Klein said. "It's the first time they had ever done anything like that. Before they had acted up and I made them go sit in the front of the bus. Why I didn't do anything that time I really can't tell you, except that I kept thinking 'School's over and then I won't have to worry about this any more.'"

Klein added that she hadn't seen the children bully anyone else — just her.

She concluded, "It was a bunch that sit together and you know how kids get sometimes."

In fairness to Klein, many of those same questions should also be directed at the school district where she is (or was) employed. That's what Meaghan McDermott did in this article for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, one of the few reports I could find that went beyond the face value of the story.

BOSTON — During his two terms as Massachusetts governor, Michael Dukakis had health care reform on his agenda. In fact, in 1988 Dukakis signed into law a health care act that would have forced businesses that didn’t offer their employees health insurance to contribute to a fund to provide such insurance — but Dukakis said his successor William Weld did what he could to stymie the effort.
 
I sat down with the former governor and presidential candidate at Northeastern University, where he is now distinguished professor of political science. I spoke with him soon after the Supreme Court decision was released — a decision that somewhat vexed Dukakis

Excerpts from the interview

"Well, I'm pleased that the basic core piece of it was upheld. On the other hand, I must say I'm confused about the decision on Medicaid. Congress has regularly required the states to expand Medicaid coverage as a condition for receiving that money ... So what you're going to end up with, I guess, is a kind of pitched battle in conservative legislatures over whether or not they're going to agree to make it possible for working people and their families — up to 133 percent of poverty, which isn't a lot of money — to get decent, affordable health care. And in point of fact that's the whole issue anyway, which I'm sorry to say my party hasn't done a very good job of explaining. This is all about working folks and their families because the overwhelming majority of uninsured people in this country, and it's about 60 million, are working or members of working families ...

"We're finally going to, I hope, move ahead with decent, affordable health care, especially for working families in this country — unless of course Mitt Romney, who's done his 125th 180, in this case on health care — gets elected! If he does, then forget it."

Did you miss the president's speech? Watch it online.

June 28, 2012

The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act in a complex ruling. In March, WGBH News followed the case as it was argued with a full week of oral arguments, analysis and features. Today, we have a full day of coverage to help you make sense of the decision.

> > Read the decision (pdf)
> > Consequences of the ruling: WGBH analysis

89.7, 10 a.m.
NPR special coverage

Diane Rehm Show, 11 a.m.
Susan Dentzer, editor-in-chief of Health Affairs, and an on-air analyst on health issues for PBS NewsHour
Susan Page, Washington bureau chief for USA Today
Jeffrey Rosen, professor of law at The George Washington University; legal affairs editor at The New Republic

Emily Rooney Show, noon
Jonathan Gruber, MIT economist and one of the chief architects of the Affordable Care Act
Kerry Healey, Lt. Gov. of Massachusetts under Mitt Romney
David Kravitz, former clerk for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor 
Dr. Harry P. Selker, head of the Tufts Medical Center Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies

Callie Crossley Show, 1 p.m.
Arnie Arnesen, N.H.–based political commentator
Brian Rosman, Health Care for All
Robert Whitcomb, editorial page editor of The Providence Journal

89.7, 7 p.m.
NPR special coverage

Greater Boston, on WGBH 2 at 7 p.m. and from 7:30 p.m. online
Kerry Healey, Republican analyst and former lieutenant governor
Dr. Paula Johnson, chair of the Boston Public Health Commission board
David Kravitz, co-founder of Blue Mass Group
Renée Landers, Suffolk University law professor and WGBH analyst

June 29, Morning Edition
Michael Dukakis, former governor of Massachusetts
Renée Landers


All segments subject to change.
 

Recent stories

> >  Decision might not mean much in Commonwealth
> >  Renée Landers discusses the possible outcomes

 
BOSTON — Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick — who has advocated for immigrant needs in the past — praised the U.S. Supreme Court for striking down key provisions of Arizona's crackdown on immigrants on June 25. But Patrick wasn't entirely satisfied. He called the Supreme Court ruling a mixed bag.
 
“Most of the provisions of the Arizona law have been ruled unconstitutional. That sounds right," he said. However, "some of the things that were preserved having to do with the ability to stop and ask questions, you know, you can see how that creates a climate of fear, especially if the Supreme Court has said you can’t actually do anything with that information.”
 
Patrick has favored expanding immigrant health care options, allowing in-state UMass tuition rates and providing driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants. But some advocates said he has failed to push immigration issues strongly enough on Beacon Hill.
 
As he was leaving his office, Patrick got into a heated exchange with students demanding a stronger stance.
 
“You know you said you were going to do something for us — at least give us licenses. I’m undocumented and I've been here for 8 years, I'm putting myself through school right now, I'm paying out-of-state [tuition]," one woman said.
 
"And I can’t do what the federal government won’t let me do," Patrick responded. "I tried to do that. But there's a federal law that prohibits it."
 
"We can’t just live in the shadows!" she said.
 
"I understand that! I’m on your side," Patrick said. "I’ve said that a million times. These provisions aren’t before me yet. I’ve been as clear as possible, not just with you but with the legislature, that if they come to me, it’s over,“
 
There are measures pending in the legislature that would require new immigration status checks for employment, state housing and driver's licenses. Patrick said if they get to his desk he’ll oppose them, though he didn’t explicitly promise a veto.

The Supreme Court health care ruling is now expected to come down this Thursday, June 28. While we all drum our fingers, law expert Renée Landers reviewed the four possible scenarios and explains the ramifications of each. 

May 31, 2012

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON — In a landmark decision, on May 31 a Boston federal appeals court declared the heart of the Defense of Marriage Act, called DOMA, unconstitutional. The 1996 law defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
 
The three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeals in Boston ruled unanimously that the law unconstitutionally discriminates against same-sex couples. 

The panel included two Republican appointees. It is the first time a federal appeals court has struck down parts of DOMA.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, whose office filed the suit, hailed the decision, saying DOMA damaged Massachusetts families everyday.

“We’re aware of veterans who would not be able to be buried in a veterans cemetery with their loved one, their married partner. They are married under Massachusetts law. But for purposes of federal law they would not be considered married and not be able to be buried together," she said, citing also couples who have not had access to health care, Social Security and other survivor benefits.

Mary Bonauto, the lead attorney for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, said the ruling affirmed the constitutional rights of the 17 plaintiffs. "Having worked with these seventeen people for these many years now, and knowing these many burdens DOMA imposes on them, I am thrilled," she said. "And I’m thrilled in part because the court couldn’t be clearer that a big part of its ruling is that these plaintiffs have the right to secure equal protection of the law on the same terms as others. That is the promise of America, and that is the foundation of this decision."
 
The court did not rule on a more politically explosive provision of DOMA, which says that states without same-sex marriage do not have to recognize same-sex unions performed in states such as Massachusetts, where gay marriage is legal. Nevertheless, Coakley called the ruling a big deal, saying, "This is a great day for Massachusetts for civil rights and for all same-sex couples in Massachusetts who are married or who will be.”

But Kris Mineau of the Massachusetts Family Institute said liberal states such as Massachusetts are trying to define marriage for the nation: "This court has the audacity to hold the federal government hostage and demand the government recognize Massachusetts’ radical social experiment and bestow its benefits upon it."

The ruling is now expected to wind up before the Supreme Court. Mineau said he was confident the court will see the "eternal logic" of defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

> > READ: Legal documents from the case
 

Gov. Patrick on May 15. (Eric Haynes/Governor's Office)

SOMERVILLE, Mass. — Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick endorsed Elizabeth Warren for the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen. Scott Brown at a hastily called press conference in Somerville on May 30.
 
Originally Patrick said he would stay out of the race until after the Democrats select a nominee. Just 3 days before the party convention in Springfield, he changed his mind.
 
“I just feel this is just a campaign that is so critically important and that it is time for us to turn our attention to our Republican opponent,” he said.
 
Warren is considered the prohibitive favorite for the Democratic nomination. But immigration attorney Marisa DeFranco does need just 15 percent of convention delegates to win a spot on the primary ballot. If she succeeds, it could create a distraction for Warren.
 
Patrick was questioned about whether he was trying to keep DeFranco off the ballot. He said that was not the case.
 
The endorsement is a bright spot in what has otherwise been a tough month for Warren, who has been dogged by the debate over whether or not she improperly identified as Native American in order to further her academic career.
 
At the press conference, both Patrick and Warren deflected questions about her purported Native American heritage.When a reporter criticized that response as not providing an answer, Warren retorted, "It is an answer," adding, "he reason that I’m in this race is what I have been working on for decades now. I have stood by and watched while America’s families have gotten hammered."
 
Patrick said, “Let me say on behalf of the people of the Commonwealth, we don’t care about that subject." Recent polls suggest that most Bay State voters are not interested in Warren's ancestry. 

Reached in her car, DeFranco was undeterred.

"I'm disappointed, especially 2 days before this very big convention. But the bottom line, basically, is that endorsements are not going to win this election. This election is going to be won on the ground," she said. 

 

If you listen to the Morning Edition interview with first lady Michelle Obama, you'll know she's come out with a new book about the White House garden. It's just one more effort to help create a culture of wellness among Americans, which began with her Let's Move campaign in 2010.

As leader of this campaign, Mrs. Obama has been careful to keep it real. She acknowledges that her family, like most of the rest of us, enjoys burgers and fries on occasion. And, in public, she's shown that she enjoys all kinds of food — and likes to celebrate it.

But she has also made it clear that in the Obama household, there are some rules at meal time. The Obamas eat brown rice instead of white, limit dessert to a few times during the week and pack lots of vegetables into dinner.

What else? Mrs. Obama told NPR's Rene Montagne that dinner is a ritual for her family.

"At 6:30 we make it a point, that if we're in town, no matter what the president is doing, we stop what we're doing, we sit down and and have a meal as a family," she said. Clearly it's not always possible with the president's schedule, but it's a high priority, she says.

And what are Sasha and Malia drinking?

"Water is probably the best thing you can do for kids or low-fat milk," Mrs. Obama says. "Just eliminating sugary drinks, take out the soda."

Besides eating together, the family also tries to exercise for 30 minutes a day.
"Even if it's going for a walk, make it fun, make it silly," she says.

As moms, dads and caregivers, lots of us are probably aiming for these same types of goals. So we wondered, how often are you able to pull it off? Take our online survey and weigh in.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

BOSTON — Massachusetts’ top securities regulator has subpoenaed Morgan Stanley related to allegations that it misled most shareholders about the value of Facebook's IPO.
 
State Secretary William Galvin said his office is investigating whether Morgan Stanley told selected investors — but not all of them — that Facebook was facing weaker revenues than previously expected before trading started on May 18.
 
“I’m very concerned about the impact on Massachusetts investors to make sure they were treated fairly," he said. "The bigger issue here is to make sure that average investors who the market is desperately trying to get back in the marketplace are treated the same as institutional investors.”
 
Galvin said that if the allegations are true, then privileged Wall Street insiders were in a position to cut back on Facebook stock or dump shares while the average person who bought Facebook stock on May 18 lost money as the stock retreated from its initial price.
 
“We don’t know what the subpoena is going to reveal and I’m not going to prejudice Morgan Stanley’s situation by saying ‘I expect to find this or I expect to find that,'" Galvin said. "But if it’s true than it means that average investors were losers at the expense of the winners who got inside information.”
 
Morgan Stanley is also being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and is being hit with several class-action lawsuits. The company defended itself in a statement, saying it acted "in compliance with all regulations."
 

Technologist-turned-politician Thomas Massie. (Gene Linzy)

 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A Boston-area whiz kid starts a tech company and then moves West to seek fame and fortune. No, I’m not talking about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook’s monumental IPO. I’m talking about Thomas Massie, an MIT grad who founded SensAble Technologies in the 1990s. SensAble was recently acquired, but Massie has gone on to become a Tea Party political hero in his home state of Kentucky. He’s now running for Congress and is the favorite to win the Republican nomination in next week’s primary. Massie credits former White House Chief of Staff John Sununu, a fellow MIT grad, for inspiring him to get into politics as an engineer.
 
In other innovation news …
 
Biotech firm Promedior, a maker of treatments for tissue damage known as fibrosis, is moving its headquarters from Pennsylvania to Boston and has hired a veteran of the Irish drug giant Shire as its new CEO.
 
MIT has elected provost L. Rafael Reif as its 17th president. The university also named Web startup CloudTop the winner of its $100K business plan competition and got a nice nod from U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park. At the finale event, Park said the U.S. government was taking a play from MIT’s book by holding its own entrepreneurship competitions. If so, they might want to look out for a certain MIT grad from Kentucky, if he ends up making it to Washington, D.C.

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

 
Answer: It's a ship. (Though it is also a kind of grape.)
 
Don't be surprised if you, like the WGBH staff, didn't know. The 100th anniversary of the Titanic is making headlines but the Sultana has a surprisingly low profile … considering it's the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history.
 
"It is kind of amazing, because I hadn't heard about it growing up either," said Alan Huffman, author of a book about the incident. "The Sultana is a story that did sort of take second fiddle to the Titanic for a lot of reasons but it's just as remarkable a saga."
 
In April 1865, the Sultana steamed out of Vicksburg up the Mississippi to take Union prisoners of war home. The boat was designed to carry about 370. But the steamboat company was paid by the head — and squeezed on eight times that. Just north of Memphis, the boilers blew up. At least 1700 people died.
 
Huffman pointed to the poignancy of the situation. "These guys had all survived the war and they had been sent to really awful prison camps in the Confederacy where their chances of dying were even greater than they were in battle, then they had been marched on foot, many of them died on the way because they were already weak, and then put on this boat and they think finally, it's over and we're on our way home," he said.
 
So why have most people never heard of the Sultana?
 
The obscurity started right away, Huffman said: The New York Times only ran a paragraph on the disaster.
 
One explanation: assassin John Wilkes Booth had been killed just the day before. But Huffman suspected that the larger context of the end of the Civil War mattered more: "I think that the American public was really tired of hearing about thousands of people dying."
 
The Mississippi has since changed its course, so the site of the tragedy is now Arkansas farmland. The boat has never been exhumed.

BOSTON — With Rick Santorum suspending his presidential campaign Tuesday, the path seems to be clear for Mitt Romney to get the Republican nomination. 

Romney biographer Ronald B. Scott said the former Massachusetts governor's team was probably breathing a sigh of relief. "For one thing, they're going to stop spending $100 million a month to run a primary election campaign and they can earmark that for the general [election]," he said.
 
The current White House administration is anything but relieved, though, Scott said: "Romney has been the candidate that the Obama camp has feared all the way along."
 
Also tense: Voters on the far right. Still, Scott thought they'd come around. "I can't imagine anybody sitting out an important election like this one," Scott said. In the end, "I would guess that they would probably vote for Romney but they may not be the most enthusiastic people on Planet Earth."
 
As for Santorum's next steps, he seems an unlikely VP candidate but it's probable the Republican Party brass have promised him some reward for bowing out.
 
Looking 7 months ahead, Scott predicted a "photo finish" for Romney and Obama. Which is, he said, a good thing: "I think the debate we're going to see is going to be refreshing [and] informative."
 
Sweater vest sales are expected to decline. 

 
It’s perilous when products gain national exposure because of news stories. Think of Kool-Aid, the powdered drink mix forever linked with cult leader Jim Jones, even though Jones didn't use Kool-Aid in the cyanide brew that killed more than 900 of his followers. (He used a competing product, Flavor Aid.) Twinkies are forever linked to San Francisco politician Harvey Milk’s murder. The killer claimed that eating the cream-filled cakes made him do it — thereby creating the Twinkie Defense.

By example, then, it’s the handling of the Skittles brand in the next few days that may determine whether it remains just a popular candy or a treat with a sour aftertaste.
 
Marketing consultant Joan Schneider praised Skittles' handling of the situation: "Perhaps they should give a donation to an anti-violence group or something like that but then people might criticize them for trying to capitalize and get good press."
 
And Skittles, at least, doesn't have to shine up a tarnished image, unlike Twinkies and Kool-Aid. "When I heard for the irst time he had Skittles and iced tea I thought [it was] emblematic of how innocent he was," Schneider said. "I think that's why it's become such a big thing. It's a symbol for what's not right."
 

 
BOSTON — Before lawyers argued at the Supreme Court, groups behind the scenes and out of sight filed briefs with the high court to help the justices see more depth and nuance in the debate.
 
One of those groups, Doctors for America, supports President Barack Obama's health care plan.
 
DFA’s co-founder and president is Dr. Vivek Murthy of Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
 
"Our belief is if we know what we have in the law, not only are we better equipped to make sure that the law is implemented well, but we’re also in a better position to advocate for the solutions we need down the line to make for a good health care system," he said. 
 
To that end, Doctors for America is mobilizing a nationwide grassroots effort to help educate doctors, patients and the general public to the benefits of the Affordable Care Act that was argued before the Supreme Court March 26–28.
 
Before Manisha Sharma was a board member for Doctors for America and even before she was a doctor in the Bronx, she was a music student at Berklee who got hit by a car.
 
Even though she had health insurance, "the next 7 years I had to fight the health care system to pay my medical bills while I was paying their premiums in order to see a doctor," Sharma said. And then, "because I got hit by a car, I had a pre-existing condition. And that’s how I came to become involved in health care reform."
 
Murthy said that the 15,000 members of Doctors for America represent various political persuasions — but that they are in sync about the need for health care reform and think the Affordable Care Act is the best they can get at this point.
 
And if it’s struck down by the Supreme Court? Murthy wasn't concerned about that.
 
"Our belief is the law will be upheld. We only need to look to Massachusetts, to our own home state to see that provisions that the act is putting in for the country can really be beneficial. We know that when people are covered and have access to care, that correlates with better health," he said.

"If it’s a time when you feel your body’s in harm, to pull out a gun… I’m not sure that’s the right idea," one man said.

"Obviously, people need the right to defend themselves. But it feels like that goes a little bit too far," said another.

But, one person said, "You think you’re going to die — I would use whatever means possible to save my life."

State Rep. Shaunna O'Connell is a supporter.
 
"If you're on a walk in the woods with your husband and someone attacks you, you need to be able to defend yourself without fear of prosecution afterwards, or being sued by the person you're defending yourself from. Right now the police, if you harm someone, they have to charge you with assault and battery," she said.
 
Opponents say the proposed law is too ambiguous and that it would lead to an increase in violent behavior. Patrick said on Thursday that he would veto any such bill the Legislature passed.

Do you support a "Stand Your Ground" law in Massachusetts? Let us know in the comments or on Facebook or Twitter.

 
> > NPR: Trayvon Martin coverage

> > WGBH News: Special series: Race and the training of police

Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Richard Nixon announces his health care plan for 1974 — one that sounds surprisingly liberal today. (YouTube)

 
BOSTON — Early last century, health care entered the modern era and started the long debate on national health care policy. The American Medical Association became a powerful national voice. Surgery was becoming more commonplace and the leading industry of the day, railroads, were among the first to develop extensive employee medical programs.

Between 1910 and 1920, progressive reformers argued that health insurance should be provided to all Americans. In the '30s, the Roosevelt administration passed the Social Security Act. There was a push to include health insurance as part of the legislation but political realities prevented it.
 
In the 1940s, prepaid group health care began in earnest — and was seen by many as radical. During World War II, wage and price controls were placed on American employees. This led companies to compete for workers by offering health benefits instead.
 
After the war, President Harry Truman offered a plan for national health care, proposing a single system that would include everyone with basic care. Truman's plan was denounced by the AMA — and some called it "communist." In the 1950s, many legislative proposals were made to address hospital insurance but none succeeded. And by the 1960s the cost of hospital care had doubled over the previous decade. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law Medicare and Medicaid, assisting the elderly, the disabled and low-income Americans.
 
By the '70s, Richard Nixon was president — and here is what this Republican proposed for 1974: 

"The time is at hand this year to bring comprehensive, high-quality health care within the reach of every American." He proposed a program that would ensure health insurance coverage.

Nixon's plan was rejected, primarily by liberals and labor unions, who thought it didn't go far enough.
 
During the 1980s, under President Ronald Reagan, complaints continued to rise over the delivery and the costs of health care. In the early months of President Bill Clinton's term, health care costs had risen at double the rate of inflation.
 
The Clinton administration introduced federal health care legislation that thrust the issue into the national dialogue but quickly became a proxy for political ideology,
 
In the new century, health care costs continued to soar and changing demographics only exacerbated the impact. Here in Massachusetts, under Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, a state health care law was passed with support from a strongly Democratic legislature.
 
At the signing, Romney said, "I want to thank the many, many people in this room who were critical to crafting and coaxing the bold health care initiative I'm about to sign," including Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy.

 
When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, among his first legislative efforts was the very heated campaign for and eventual passage of the Affordable Care Act, closely modeled after the Massachusetts plan.
 
"Long after the debate fades away and the prognostication fades away and the dust settles, what will remain standing … [is] a system that works better for the American people," he said.

 
As we sit here today, the Supreme Court is considering that plan, primarily for the constitutionality of the individual mandate the act requires. And the political winds continue to blow after more than a century, leading to an awkward distancing of author to work, from Nixon to Clinton, from Obama to Romney and even from Romney to himself.
 
"Our plan in Massachusetts has some good parts, some bad parts," Romney said on the campaign trail. "It's different than Obamacare. Obamacare intends to put someone between you and your physician. It must be repealed."

> > Read the rest of our Monday stories or see the complete schedule of coverage in WGBH News Focus: Health Care on Trial

BOSTON — This week, WGBH News is broadcasting the entire Supreme Court oral arguments for the case against President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. Law professor Renée Landers will be commenting on the arguments on-air. She told WGBH News' Bob Seay that all ears will be on justices Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia. One in particular could be put in an unusual position: that of supporting the president's agenda. 

Though he's known as a conservative, Scalia wrote a concurring opinion that authorized the exercise of federal power in a medical marijuana case. In that situation, he thought "the intrusion in individual economic activity was appropriate. There’s language in that opinion that’s very hard for him to walk away from because I think it's directly applicable to this case," Landers said. "These federalism issues sometimes take people out of their normal ideological leanings."

Along with determining the constitutionality of the "individual mandate" to purchase health insurance, the court has to decide whether Congress has the power to dictate a significant expansion in Medicaid eligibility that is also part of the bill.

And it's even possible, Landers said, that the court will decide it's too soon to decide "because the law hasn't fully gone into effect," she said. "The court wouldn't be saying necessarily that the statute in all respects is constitutional, but it will be saying we’re going to postpone the decision until some future time."

Read the complete conversation:

LANDERS: I think that there are probably four really strong votes to uphold the Affordable Care Act: the four liberal justices who were appointed by Democratic presidents. And then the other five members of the court, among them there are two or three who I think are likely to vote that at least parts of the law are unconstitutional because of their previous votes in other cases. And then there are two or three who I think are really on the fence. I think that Justice [Anthony] Kennedy and Justice [Antonin] Scalia, we’ll be working and listening for hints about how they might be leaning in this particular case.
 
SEAY: Interesting with Justice Scalia, I thought he’d be more conservative…
 
LANDERS: These federalism issues sometimes take people out of their normal ideological leanings, and Justice Scalia a few years ago wrote a concurring opinion in the medical marijuana case called González v. Raich, where he seemed to give this ringing endorsement of the exercise of federal power to give effect to a big regulatory scheme like regulating controlled substances, dangerous drugs and so on. He thought therefore the intrusion in individual economic activity was appropriate. There’s language in that opinion that’s very hard for him to walk away from because I think it's directly applicable to this case.
 
SEAY: So there’s plenty of suspense in this case! What about the timing of this consideration? Considering it is a presidential election year, you like to think that the Supreme Court doesn't want to insert itself politically into what's going on … but certainly it will by virtue of its decision.
 
LANDERS: It certainly will. The only way that it won't have that effect is if the court were to decide that it's premature to decide any of the substantive issues about the constitutionality of individual mandate or the constitutionality of the Medicaid expansion at this time because the law hasn't fully gone into effect. The court wouldn't be saying necessarily that the statute in all respects is constitutional, but it will be saying we’re going to postpone the decision until some future time.
 
SEAY: Now, the politics of this presidential campaign, especially within the Republican field, have placed the Massachusetts health care plan into the national spotlight. How, in fact, did the Massachusetts health care mandate inform what was included in the federal law?
 
LANDERS: The structure of the individual mandate with the tax penalty in the federal law is similar; it’s not identical to, but very similar to what we've done in Massachusetts.
 
SEAY: Well, was there ever a question about the constitutionality of the Massachusetts law here in the Commonwealth?
 
LANDERS: Well, you know, for different reasons. So this case that the court is hearing is about the extent of the federal government's power to regulate in this area. The states traditionally have regulated insurance, with one exception. There is a federal statute called ERISA, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which takes some insurance regulation out of the power of the states to regulate. And if there was a question about the legality of the Massachusetts law, it would have to do with that conflict with that federal statute. But so far that Massachusetts law’s not been challenged on that basis.
 
SEAY: To simplify what the issues are here, I guess the most common controversy that people have heard about is this individual mandate. That is the central issue?
 
LANDERS: I would say that that's the most significant issue in this case. People do still have a choice about whether to purchase insurance. Unfortunately, there’s an incentive not to make that choice because people who make that choice will pay a tax penalty if they have the income to afford available insurance products in their state.
 
SEAY: In the Affordable Care Act, there are exemptions for people who can't afford it. Does that kind of mitigate the government mandate issue?
 
LANDERS: Well, it does, and I think that's one of the things that the Massachusetts law recognized. You can’t require people to buy a product that there's not a reasonable expectation that they would be able to afford it, which is why the law has, the federal law and Massachusetts law, also have subsidies for lower-income people to enable them to purchase available insurance products on the market. Even with those subsidies there is recognition that some people may not be able to afford the insurance product because of their personal financial circumstances, and there are exemptions in the law for people who can make that showing.
 
SEAY: Now, we mentioned the individual mandate. What are the other issues that are going to be debated in this case?
 
LANDERS: One other issue is this question of does the court have jurisdiction? Is it too soon to review the case?
 
Second, the other major change that the law institutes is an expansion of the Medicaid program, which is the federal/state program that provides health insurance essentially to low-income populations. In the past, in order to be eligible for Medicaid, the person had to be an adult under the age of 65, essentially with dependent children. There were some other categories of people who could be covered but that was essentially the population covered. It cut a lot of people out, a lot of low-income people out, of the opportunity to have healthcare coverage for Medicaid. The Affordable Care Act now requires that all Medicaid programs cover all people under the age of 65 who don't have some other option and whose incomes are at or below 133 percent essentially of the poverty level. And so this is totally changing that.
 
So now an adult male who is 45 years old who works in a minimum-wage job, who does not earn income above the other level specified in the statute, that person will be eligible for Medicaid now and before that person would not have been. So it's a big expansion, and the states are objecting to this expansion — that they will have to reconfigure eligibility standards, all kinds of things about their Medicaid programs in order to continue to participate. But in fact, on this Medicaid expansion, the federal government until 2020 is going to pay for 100 percent or 90 percent of the cost of the expansion of covering that new population. So I think the state argument that it's intrusive is a very, very weak one.
 
And then the final issue in the case is if the court were to determine that the individual mandate, for example, is unconstitutional, could the rest of the statute stand even without those parts of the court has declared unconstitutional?

 
BOSTON — Violent crime across the U.S. has gone down in recent years, but in major metro areas it's remained persistent. Boston has been no exception — a fact brought home this week as jurors in a Mattapan quadruple-murder trial struggled to decide on a verdict. And within the span of one week last month, Boston saw an acute spike in violence that culminated in three deadly shootings. 
 
In an effort to change what he calls "a culture of violence," Boston Ten Point Coalition founder Rev. Jeffrey Brown brought faith leaders, law enforcement officials, and policy makers together on Mar. 12-13 for a summit in Washington, D.C. The initiative is called RECAP: Rebuilding Every City Around Peace and it has a particular focus on gang and youth violence.
 
The idea behind the conference was to discuss how clergy and police could work together to curb crime, and Brown saw promising signs. 25 cities were represented, with police executives from 11 of them. "They're looking for ways in which they could really in some ways move forward — fresh new ideas around anti-violence strategies and to work more closely with the community in order to make this happen," he said.
 
Boston has seen some success recently by making law enforcement more visible in the community. Randall Halstead, deputy superintendent with the Boston Police Department, said the department has joined forces with clergy and community members to help cut down on drug trafficking and violent crime. 

He's noticed a huge change in police attitude and procedure from when he first joined the force in the 1980s.
 
"The frame of mind then was to go out and arrest, arrest, arrest," Halstead said. "What I find now that we changed our format and our proactive approach, since we know that the majority of the criminal activity is carried out by the same 1 to 2 percent of individuals, while we're on patrol we stop and we speak to them. And they get to know us, we get to know them."
 
It's work sorely needed. "In my entire high school career I only went to one funeral," Brown said — two kids who died in a car accident. "Now you have people who in their ninth-grade year will look forward to going to at least a dozen funerals … of people in their neighborhood who have been killed by violence."