State Business and Economy News

Olympian Kristi Yamaguchi is ‘tickled pink’ to inspire a Barbie doll [Video]
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Olympian Kristi Yamaguchi is ‘tickled pink’ to inspire a Barbie doll [Video]

Like many little girls, a young Kristi Yamaguchi loved playing with Barbie. With a schedule packed with ice skating practices, her Barbie dolls became her “best friends.”Video above: Barbie’s new role model dolls are announcedSo, it’s surreal for the decorated Olympian figure skater to now be a Barbie girl herself.”It’s a huge, huge honor. I think a lot of pride comes along with it, not just recognizing the Olympic achievement, but also being recognized during AAPI Month and following in the footsteps of some incredible women that I idolize Anna May Wong, Maya Angelou and Rosa Parks,” Yamaguchi told The Associated Press. “It’s hard to see me put in the category with them.”Yamaguchi, who became the first Asian American to win an individual figure skating gold medal, at the 1992 Winter Olympics, has been immortalized as a doll for Barbie’s “Inspiring Women Series,” Mattel announced Wednesday. The release is timed for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, in May.This isn’t Yamaguchi’s first doll depiction. In the ’90s, the touring show Stars on Ice put out a line of dolls modeled after notable skaters. The Barbie version is a lot more detailed.Mattel duplicated everything the then 20-year-old medalist wore at the Olympics in Albertville, France: the sparkling black-and-gold brocade outfit designed by Lauren Sheehan, the gold hair ribbon and even a red-and-white bouquet like Yamaguchi held atop the podium.Yamaguchi said both she and Sheehan are “just so tickled pink.”She also is happy with the doll’s visage.”It looks like me for sure. You know, the eyes and just the shape of the face. And then, of course, the hair, for sure. I mean, it has the bangs that are the ’90s,” Yamaguchi said, chuckling.She appreciates that the doll’s release comes on the high heels of the blockbuster “Barbie” movie last year. Her daughters, ages 18 and 20, are fans of the Oscar-nominated film. Their initial reaction to their mother being a Barbie? Disbelief.”When they found out I was getting a doll, they were kind of flabbergasted and being like, ‘What? Like Mom, like how do you qualify? But that’s way too cool for you,'” Yamaguchi said.When Yamaguchi became a household name in the ’90s, most Asian American children were growing up feeling like toys-aren’t-us kids. If you were an Asian parent looking for an Asian doll in the U.S., you likely turned to independent mail-order companies or waited until you were visiting your country of heritage.Since then, the toy market has evolved somewhat with big companies like Mattel diversifying and independent entrepreneurs filling the void. Two Asian doll lines Jilly Bing and Joeydolls launched within the last year, one by an Asian American mother and the other by an Asian Canadian mother. Both could not find dolls that looked like their daughters.Sapna Cheryan, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington who served a year on Mattel’s Barbie Global Advisory Council in 2018, said Asian Americans have long dealt with two stereotypes: the model-minority whiz kid or the perpetual foreigner. Toys can help dispel those myths, and instead signal acceptance and inclusivity.Dolls modeled after real people can get people talking about their human counterparts. Cheryan applauded Barbie’s choice of Yamaguchi.”There are so many Asian American athletes but they’re just not propped up in a way that athletes of other racial groups are,” said Cheryan, who researches cultural stereotypes and their impact on race and gender disparities. “Having a match in terms of racial identification or gender or both,” she said, is important in creating effective role models for kids.Mattel has mostly garnered praise for its diversity efforts but it’s had some missteps along the way. In 2021, the toy maker said it “fell short” by failing to include an Asian doll in a line of Tokyo Olympics-themed Barbies. In January, there was some backlash to Asian “You Can Be Anything” Barbies that seemed stereotypical. One was a violinist and the other a doctor in panda scrubs.Tying Yamaguchi to Barbie, a symbol of American pop culture, is especially remarkable considering what she and her family have dealt with as Japanese Americans. She has spoken about how her maternal and paternal grandparents were forced into U.S. incarceration camps in response to Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.When she captured the gold over 50 years later, media coverage partially focused on why she didn’t seem to have many endorsement deals. In an AP article from 1992, a sports advertising executive blamed her Japanese heritage, citing an economic climate that was anti-Japan. “It’s wrong, wrong, wrong, but that is the way it is,” the executive said.So while Barbie may seem like just a toy, it’s so much more for Yamaguchi.”When kids see themselves or see someone who inspires them, then it just opens up their world and their imagination to what’s possible,” she said.

What’s EMTALA, the patient protection law at the center of Supreme Court abortion arguments? [Video]
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What’s EMTALA, the patient protection law at the center of Supreme Court abortion arguments? [Video]

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Wednesday in a case that could determine whether doctors can provide abortions to pregnant women with medical emergencies in states that enact abortion bans.The Justice Department has sued Idaho over its abortion law, which allows a woman to get an abortion only when her life not her health is at risk. The state law has raised questions about when a doctor is able to provide the stabilizing treatment that federal law requires.The federal law, called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA, requires doctors to stabilize or treat any patient who shows up at an emergency room.Heres a look at the history of EMTALA, what rights it provides patients and how a Supreme Court ruling might change that.WHAT PROTECTIONS DOES EMTALA PROVIDE ME AT AN ER?Simply put, EMTALA requires emergency rooms to offer a medical exam if you turn up at their facility. The law applies to nearly all emergency rooms any that accept Medicare funding.Those emergency rooms are required to stabilize patients if they do have a medical emergency before discharging or transferring them. And if the ER doesnt have the resources or staff to properly treat that patient, staff members are required to arrange a medical transfer to another hospital, after theyve confirmed the facility can accept the patient.So, for example, if a pregnant woman shows up at an emergency room concerned that she is in labor but there is no OB/GYN on staff, hospital staff cannot simply direct the woman to go elsewhere.WHY WAS THIS LAW CREATED?Look to Chicago in the early 1980s.Doctors at the citys public hospital were confronting a huge problem: Thousands of patients, many of them Black or Latino, were arriving in very bad condition and they were sent there by private hospitals in the city that refused to treat them. Most of them did not have health insurance.Chicago wasnt alone. Doctors working in public hospitals around the country reported similar issues. Media reports, including one of a pregnant woman who delivered a stillborn baby after being turned away by two hospitals because she didnt have insurance, intensified public pressure on politicians to act.Congress drafted legislation with Republican Sen. David Durenberger of Minnesota saying at the time, Americans, rich or poor, deserve access to quality health care. This question of access should be the governments responsibility at the federal, state, and local levels.Then-President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, signed the bill into law in 1986.WHAT HAPPENS IF A HOSPITAL TURNS AWAY A PATIENT?The hospital is investigated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. If they find the hospital violated a patients right to care, they can lose their Medicare funding, a vital source of revenue for most hospitals to keep their doors open.Usually, however, the federal government issues fines when a hospital violates EMTALA. They can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.WHY IS THE SUPREME COURT LOOKING AT THE LAW?Since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has repeatedly reminded hospitals that his administration considers an abortion part of the stabilizing care that EMTALA requires facilities to provide.The Biden administration argues that Idahos law prevents ER doctors from offering an abortion if a woman needs one in a medical emergency.But Idahos attorney general has pointed out that EMTALA also requires hospitals to consider the health of the unborn child in its treatment, too.WHAT ARE ADVOCATES SAYING?Anti-abortion advocates argue that state laws banning abortion can coexist with the federal law that requires hospitals to stabilize pregnant patients in an emergency.The prominent anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America called the lawsuit in Idaho a PR stunt, in a statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday.The EMTALA case is based on the false premise that pregnant women cannot receive emergency care under pro-life laws,” said Kelsey Pritchard, the groups state public affairs director. “It is a clear fact that pregnant women can receive miscarriage care, ectopic pregnancy care and treatment in a medical emergency in all 50 states.”But many doctors say its not as clear cut as anti-abortion advocates claim. Idahos state law banning abortion, except for the life of the mother, has left some doctors weighing if a patient is close enough to death to treat.Most other states allow doctors to perform abortions to save the health of a mother. But, if the Supreme Court rules in Idahos favor, it could invite other states to pass restrictions without that exemption.In a statement released Monday, Jack Resneck, the former president of the American Medical Association, said Idahos law forces doctors to withhold proper treatment for patients.The states dangerous standard cannot be applied to the real-life situations faced in emergency departments every day, Resneck said. There is no bright line when each patients condition suddenly reaches life-threatening, and deteriorating patients dont want their physicians delaying care.

Potential TikTok ban heads to Biden for signature [Video]
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State Business and Economy News

Potential TikTok ban heads to Biden for signature [Video]

President Biden is set to sign a long-awaited foreign aid package that received final congressional approval Tuesday. Included with it is a provision that could lead to a ban on TikTok if the app's China-based parent company doesn't divest. CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane is covering it all from Capitol Hill.

3.6 million Medicare enrollees may now be eligible for Wegovy coverage [Video]
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State Business and Economy News

3.6 million Medicare enrollees may now be eligible for Wegovy coverage [Video]

About 3.6 million Medicare enrollees may qualify for coverage of the anti-obesity drug Wegovy, according to a KFF analysis released Wednesday. But it could wind up costing Medicare nearly $3 billion a year and contribute to higher Part D premiums for all beneficiaries.Medicare announced last month that Part D drug plans could start covering Wegovy for beneficiaries who are overweight or obese and have a history of heart disease after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved drugmaker Novo Nordisks application to add cardiovascular benefits to the medicines label.GLP-1 medications such as Wegovy and its sister drug Ozempic, which is approved to treat diabetes, have exploded in popularity because they can lead to weight loss. Medicare is banned by law from covering anti-obesity drugs, but the FDAs expanded Wegovy approval for reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke in certain people opens the door to more beneficiaries being covered.An estimated 7% of Medicare enrollees including just over a quarter of those diagnosed as overweight or obese fit the criteria for Wegovy coverage in 2020, according to KFF. Of the 3.6 million beneficiaries, 1.9 million of them had diabetes and may have been already been eligible for Medicare coverage of GLP-1 drugs for that disease.Just how many beneficiaries start taking Wegovy depends on several factors, including how many insurers add it to their Part D formularies. CVS Healths Aetna and several other insurers have said they will do so, although they may add restrictions, such as prior authorization.Also, Wegovys hefty price may be a hurdle for some enrollees, who could face monthly co-insurance costs of $325 to $430 before they reach the new cap on out-of-pocket drug spending, KFF said. The limits are about $3,300, based on brand-name drugs only, this year and $2,000 next year.The price tag for Medicare could approach $3 billion for one year, assuming just 10% of eligible beneficiaries use Wegovy and if Part D plans receive a 50% rebate on the list price of $1,300 a month, according to KFF.But it will probably result in higher Part D premiums for enrollees, though the exact impact is difficult to pin down, said Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the Program on Medicare Policy at KFF.Medicare is facing steep increases in spending on GLP-1 drugs. It shelled out $5.7 billion on Ozempic and other similar diabetes drugs in 2022, up from $57 million in 2018, though this estimate does not include rebates, according to a separate KFF analysis.Medicare could choose Wegovy and Ozempic for its drug negotiation program as early as 2025, KFF said, which could lower spending on the medications.