For our weekend political readers:
TV'S MOST MEMORABLE MOMENTS
If you think the “Who shot J.R.?” episode on the show Dallas was America's most memorable TV moment during the past 50 years, you're not even close. It ranked #44.
How about the Beatles appearance on Ed Sullivan's show? It was only #43.
Sony Electronics and Nielsen television research company put the survey together.
They ranked TV moments for their impact not just by asking people if they remembered watching them, but if they recalled where they watched it, who they were with and whether they talked to other people about what they had seen.
Sony was interested in the study for clues on consumer interests and behaviors and found “that television is really the grandmother of all the social devices,” said Brian Siegel, vice president of television business for the company.
You'll have to go this link for the Wall Street Journal story to find out the highest ranked memorable moments, but we will say both men and women “agreed on the three most impactful television events” and yes, there is a political angle to them.
INVESTORS BULLISH ON MEDICAID EXPANSION
Despite all the political fighting about President Obama's plan to expand Medicaid, particularly among the red states, Politico.com reports “The market seems to think they are bluffing.”
Amerigroup — alongside other Medicaid-focused insurance firms such as Centene and Molina — stands to benefit from the program, as full participation from states would add an estimated 16 million people to the Medicaid rolls.
“When you step back from all this, there are billions of dollars of federal money that are going to flow into the states. We think the states are going to need to take it,” Amerigroup CEO James Carlson told analysts.
Rejecting the expansion would allow governors to take a tough political stand against Obama’s health care law, but they would pay a heavy price to do so. The health care law requires federal government to cover 100 percent of the costs of the expansion for the first three years — 2014 through 2016 — before scaling back to 90 percent by 2020.
Health industry investors and analysts say that’s more money than the governors will be willing to walk away from.
Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry this past week became the latest to “declare that the expansion won’t breach his state’s borders, taking advantage of the Supreme Court’s ruling barring the federal governments from punishing states for opting out.”
“I think Wall Street looks at that and says, ‘Wait a minute, these guys are nuts,’” said Richard Evans, an analyst for Connecticut-based Sector & Sovereign Research. “The market has been looking at the Republican governors’ statements as just political.”
Click on this link to find out what a heavy financial price states could pay for refusing Medicaid expansion and why “the health insurance industry is betting big that the governors' politics won't become their policies.”
SOME DEMOCRATIC GOVERNORS SQUEAMISH ABOUT MEDICAID EXPANSION
“While the resistance of Republican governors has dominated the debate over the health-care law in the wake of last month’s Supreme Court decision to uphold it, a number of Democratic governors are also quietly voicing concerns about a key provision to expand coverage.
At least seven Democratic governors have been non-committal about their willingness to go along with expanding their Medicaid programs, the chief means by which the law would extend coverage to millions of Americans with incomes below or near the poverty line.”
A Washington Post article points out that the Medicaid expansion was a hot button topic at the recent National Governors Association meeting in Williamsburg, Virginia.
