Federal Government

One of the mandates of the Affordable Care Act was to reduce insurance costs to consumers, but insurance premiums have been increasing nationwide, in some cases up to several hundred dollars a month. Jonathan Weiner, professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Jay Hancock, reporter for Kaiser Health News, examine the trend and take listener questions as part of our continuing coverage of health care reform.

Low-doc, no-doc, and other risky loans helped cause the housing collapse. A new federal consumer agency has adopted a rule aimed at squeezing this kind of lending out of the market. Will it keep banks from making mortgage loans to people who can't afford them? We ask a University of Maryland business school teaching fellow with decades of experience working for lenders, assessing risk.

As Ken Burns prepares to release his two-part, four-hour documentary about the ecological calamity that intensified the Great Depression, Midday contributor Rona Kobell looks at lessons learned about land conservation after the Dust Bowl. Our November edition of Midday on the Bay includes a conversation with Susan Shumaker, associate producer of  "The Dust Bowl," and a look at how Maryland and other states protect agricultural lands in the Chesapeake region.

A conversation with Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin about the election, the Congressional divide, and the looming fiscal cliff.

Midday's team of analysts and political experts look at how Maryland voted during last night's election including an analysis of the same-sex marriage victory, the Maryland DREAM Act victory, the confirmation of the new redistricting map and expanded gambling.

After the most expensive presidential campaign in American history, some of the most brutally negative congressional contests in recent memory, and several controversial ballot measures in Maryland and other states, our panel of political experts give their analysis, weigh in on the winners and losers and take your questions about the historic 2012 General Election on both hours of Midday.

In the aftermath of the recession, income inequality in the U.S. reached a new high, according to the Census Bureau, and no surprise to political economist and Marketplace commentator Robert Reich. He says our political and economic systems are rigged against average working people. But what to do about it? Reich, former U.S. labor secretary, talks about his election year ebook, “Beyond Outrage: What has gone wrong with our economy and our democracy, and how to fix it.” Original air date 10/3/12

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Donald Barlett and James Steele say Congress is complicit in the destruction of American manufacturing and the secure jobs that once fueled our economy. They say it helped dismantle private pension systems while cutting taxes for the wealthy. Barlett and Steele, who have been reporting on U.S. economic and political issues for more than 30 years, are authors of “The Betrayal of the American Dream.” Original air date 8/28/12

A lawsuit that could change how chickens are raised around the country goes to federal court today.  The Waterkeepers Alliance is suing Perdue over uncovered sludge on the Hudson farm on the lower shore.  We'll talk about what's at stake with a reporter who's covering the trial.