Don Marsh

Public radio listeners are familiar with weekly Friday segments from StoryCorps in which family members and close friends talk with one another, sharing memorable stories.

And as we head into the holiday season and families begin to gather, we’re reminded of opportunities to take full advantage of documenting and preserving family histories and stories.

Within approximately the last twenty years, Missouri ranks among the worst states in which the gap between rich and middle-income households has widened.  That’s according to a new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute.

As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, we also take note of the report’s finding in which the gap between the very richest and the poor is even larger with the top 5 percent of Missouri households having an average income 11.7 times that of the bottom fifth.

The lame duck Congress is now in session and while historically known as a time of inaction, the large task of avoiding the “fiscal cliff” is ever-present.

The fiscal cliff is a combination of tax increases and spending cuts which would take effect on January 1, 2013, primarily due to the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts.

Host Don Marsh talked with Rob Koenig, the St. Louis Beacon’s Washington D.C. correspondent.

On November 6, 2012, Missouri voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition E, which prohibited the Governor or any state agency from establishing or operating a state-based health insurance exchange without legislative or citizen approval.

The Affordable Care Act, however, moves on toward full implementation in 2014.

Host Don Marsh talked with Sidney Watson, Professor of Law at Saint Louis University’s Health Law Policy Center, and Ryan Barker, Director of Health Policy for the Missouri Foundation for Health.