March 11, 2023 - PBS News Weekend full episode

JOHN YANG: Tonight on "PBS News Weekend," we look at how millions of Medicaid enrollees could be kicked down to the program now that special pandemic rules are ending.

Then, ahead of tomorrow night's Academy Awards, how representation on and off-screen matters, and where Hollywood is still falling behind.

REBECCA SUN: Year to year, the fortunes of women can swing from two in a race to zero in a race you're not solidly achieving a pipeline of systemic equity.

JOHN YANG: And remembering an icon of American culture the shopping mall through the lens of one photographer.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Good evening.

I'm John Yang.

California's deadly storm season seems to just keep getting worse after days of torrential rain.

A river levee failed in Northern California overnight, triggering flooding and water rescues.

Elsewhere in the state, the threat of flooding has thousands of people under evacuation orders.

Some roadways have washed away, the heavy rains and melting snow pack are forcing officials to open the floodgates at some of the state's reservoirs for the first time in years.

And more rain is on the way early next week.

It was three years ago today that the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic.

The WHO says it's still not ready to say the public health emergency is over, even as people around the globe have resumed their normal lives.

More than 1.1 million people in the United States and nearly 7 million people worldwide have died from the virus.

Globally, COVID continues to kill nearly 1000 people a day.

Three American women are missing in Mexico after crossing the border two weeks ago to sell clothes at a flea market.

Mexican authorities are investigating the disappearance of the two sisters from Texas and their friend.

In all, there are 112,000 missing persons nationwide in Mexico.

More than 500 of them are Americans.

Indonesia's most active volcano, Mount Merapi, has erupted again today, sending clouds of hot ash into the sky and an avalanche of lava down the mountain slope.

No deaths have been reported, but the eruption forced the country to pause tourism and mining activity.

Indonesia is on the Pacific Ring of Fire and has more active volcanoes than any other country.

And U.S. Skier Mikaela Shiffrin is now the most successful World Cup skier ever male or female.

Her slalom race win today in Sweden was her 87th victory, surpassing Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark's record that had stood for 34 years.

From now on, every win Shiffrin is going to set a new record.

Still to come on "PBS News Weekend," what the lack of women in film, both in front and behind the camera means for the industry.

And remembering the once ubiquitous, now disappearing shopping mall.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: During the pandemic, enrollment in Medicaid, the public insurance program for those with low incomes, surged more than 28%, and the uninsured rate reached an all-time low.

That's largely because Congress temporarily blocked states from kicking people off Medicaid even if they were no longer eligible.

That ends starting at the end of this month, and as many as 15 million of the 84 million current enrollees could eventually lose coverage.

Rachana Pradhan is a Correspondent for Kaiser Health News.

Rachana, this is what's called continuous coverage in other words, not kicking people off, not checking their eligibility.

That all ends under the law on March 31.

Is this all going to happen at once on April 1, or people just going to be who are no longer eligible, just going to find out they're not covered?

RACHANA PRADHAN, Correspondent, Kaiser Health News: No, I think it's pretty unlikely that someone immediately on April 1 would get a letter saying, you don't qualify, you're going to lose your benefits.

States have about a year actually to complete this whole process, and part of that is because the Biden administration and Congress, frankly, are trying to make sure that we have enough time.

They have enough time to go through everyone, to make sure that people aren't kicked off unnecessarily when they may still qualify.

But the other thing, too, is because we have unprecedented numbers of people on Medicaid right now, it's going to take a lot of time.

So they have about a year, and every state's timeline might be a little different.

Some are going to move faster than others.

JOHN YANG: Are there some states who are already checking?

RACHANA PRADHAN: There are states that have begun to notify people that their benefits could end soon.

They've begun sending letters to people letting them know that technically, starting in April, if they get a renewal notice and they don't furnish information that's needed for the state to confirm that they still qualify, they are at risk of losing their benefits.

So that will be starting soon, but it could be months from now before someone actually receives that kind of notification.

JOHN YANG: And in the meantime, they'd be covered?

RACHANA PRADHAN: Right.

In the meantime, they're still covered.

JOHN YANG: So, Rachana, are we essentially going back to where were before the pandemic, where there is a Medicaid gap?

People who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to qualify for the subsidies under the Affordable Care Act?

RACHANA PRADHAN: So, yes, the states where Medicaid was not expanded, the eligibility was not broadened under the Affordable Care Act.

Those states are, of course, disproportionately.

They're in the south and the Midwest.

They are going to have very restrictive eligibility levels once again for especially adults without children because, of course, Medicaid, it covers so many people that how you qualify based on your income varies depending on whether you are a senior in a nursing home, whether you are a pregnant person who's currently receiving Medicaid, whether you're a child.

So, I think the risk really people who are trying to ensure that coverage is maintained for those who are eligible, certain people are at higher risk for losing their benefits, especially adults about children, and parents and their children.

Those are people who are, I think, especially vulnerable.

JOHN YANG: Why?

Why those groups, particularly?

RACHANA PRADHAN: Children in particular, a lot of the time, their health insurance status will depend on those of their parents.

And so, if the parents are uninsured, they're not necessarily going to get their children insured.

But also certain groups who are on Medicaid, they're more likely to experience instability in their income and their housing and their jobs.

And so those people tend to kind of -- they don't always stay consistently on the program.

So, I think those people are the ones who maybe they qualify for Medicaid at certain points in the year, but then at other points they don't.

And so, for a state, they need to be able to reach those people to really ensure that their income is within the limits that Medicaid prescribes.

JOHN YANG: And as you say, in a normal year, they're constantly checking to see people's income levels, to see where they're living, to make sure they're still eligible.

This sounds like a huge administrative task to go through the entire roles.

Talk about the fear that people who are qualified are going to get dropped.

RACHANA PRADHAN: Well, it's been a long-standing problem even before the pandemic, it was a long-standing issue to get a hold of people who are on Medicaid, right?

This population, they're low income.

They tend to be more transient.

They have unstable housing, unstable jobs.

All of that, of course, was compounded during the pandemic.

But as a result, if you're trying to confirm that someone still qualifies, you have to be able to reach them.

And you're not necessarily going to be able to, especially when people have had so much instability in their lives over the last three years.

A lot of Medicaid verification work is still done through paperwork.

It's hard paper.

It's letters that are sent through the mail.

It's not the most tech savvy area in terms of trying to get a hold of people.

And it's very common that mail won't be sent back to the state or it gets sent to the wrong address to begin with.

And I think that is the risk in all of this because as we know, this is the largest renewal - - Medicaid renewal effort really in the program's history.

It's never been this big.

JOHN YANG: And politically, it's very tough to take away a benefit or something that take away something that people are getting from the government.

Do you think, is this going to renew the debate or the push to expand Medicaid nationwide, even in the eleven states that didn't do it under the Affordable Care Act?

I think it will depend on the extent to which people lose their benefits.

I think it's safe to say there are people who are receiving coverage right now who should not still be on that program because of their income or because they've moved out of state, for example.

But that being said, if you start seeing tremendous numbers of people losing their benefits, especially when they might still qualify, then I think you could see a push again or that used as a reason to expand eligibility levels more broadly in the states that tend to be more restrictive.

JOHN YANG: Rachana Pradhan of the Kaiser Health News, thank you very much.

RACHANA PRADHAN: Thank you for having me.

JOHN YANG: In some ways, tomorrow night's Academy Awards marked big advances in diversity.

Four of this year's 20 acting nominees are of Asian descent, the most ever.

And last year more top movies starred women of color than in the previous 16 years.

But there are still notable gaps, particularly for women behind the camera.

None of the best director nominees is a woman and only one of the films up for best picture was directed by a woman.

And there were nominations in any category for films with both black female leads and black female directors.

The University of Southern California has found that in Oscar's 95-year history, only 17% of nominees have been women and fewer than 2% have been women of color.

What's more, only 9% of the directors of last year's top 100 earning films were women and less than 3% were women of color.

Jeff Brown spoke with Rebecca Sun, who reports on diversity and inclusivity for the Hollywood Reporter.

JEFF BROWN: Rebecca Sun, thanks so much for joining us.

I want to start with the question of women behind the camera.

Directors, writers, other important roles.

You've looked at this over time, general terms first when you look at this Oscar season, what do you see?

REBECCA SUN: What I see, this Oscar season is something that's played out in years past, which is we are now getting films sort of in that larger conversation that are considered awards caliber directed by women, but it's still very difficult for them to make it into that final five cut at the Academy awards.

And so this happened again, you know, Oscar so male, at least when we're talking about the directing category, even though people can actually now name specific women that would be considered subs.

JEFF BROWN: This comes after a few years of successes for women, certainly in the director category, right?

REBECCA SUN: Yes, absolutely.

And when we talk about success, we should also say that this is relative success, right.

Certainly the fact that we've had, you know, Greta Gerwig in the conversation, that we had Chloe Zhao, that Jane Campion, you know, win Best Directing Oscars is -- it's light years from how it was simply a decade ago.

I think that there's such a difference between a trend and sustainable change.

As long as we're still at a precarious point where year to year the fortunes of women can swing from two in a race to zero in a race, you're not solidly achieving a pipeline of systemic equity.

We don't worry year to year if any men will make it into the race.

That is literally a question that nobody has asked.

But that's still a question for women.

You know, will any women make it into the race this year?

As long as that question still exists and is a realistic one, we haven't really achieved systemic change yet.

JEFF BROWN: Now, another thing you've long looked at is Asian and Asian American actors.

It's a notably big year in that regard.

How big a moment, how big a sign of change would this be?

REBECCA SUN: You know, I do think that things began to change after Parasite in 2019.

One basically every Oscar that it was nominated for, but it was not nominated in a single individual acting category.

And that sort of emphasized a trend that we had seen in years past where films with predominantly Asian casts like The Last Emperor or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon would be very acclaimed across the board but would receive no recognition for its individual actors.

This year's Oscars is a record high, with four Asian actors across the board being nominated.

So that is very significant from the past, but I will say it's significant because it was so minimal to nonexistent before.

JEFF BROWN: And criticism from people in Hollywood of color continues.

One notable piece was Gina Prince-Bythewood, the Director of the Woman King.

REBECCA SUN: Yes, absolutely.

It's notable because we are no longer in a media ecosystem where there aren't worthy performances, where there aren't awards caliber films about and made by black people.

And this year, black women in particular, movies about black people, particularly when they're about black women and by black women, are seen as specialty films.

They're seen as films that are not for a "general audience."

They sometimes might be seen as homework or obligatory.

You know, movies about black women are still kind of painted with an asterisk, and perhaps that affected its chances at the Oscars.

JEFF BROWN: We all pay a special attention at this moment, right, at Oscar season.

But really the issue is about the pipeline that kind of feeds into the movies that get made and even have a chance, right?

REBECCA SUN: Absolutely.

And the pipeline is something that there are people in the industry who have been working on it for a very long time.

I think that you are seeing those dividends begin to pay off in terms of more women getting shots at shooting studio movies, you know, movies in different genres than just, you know, romantic comedies and small domestic films.

But award season is always the very tail end of that pipeline.

It's one thing to get your movie greenlit, to be released, to be distributed, to be marketed and then to be recognized is kind of that final piece.

And progress is slow, as was expected, but that pipeline is being built.

So, with all the attention on the Oscar films, this is a good chance maybe to tell our audience about some films that you love, that you wish more people got to see that didn't get the acclaim or the attention?

REBECCA SUN: One film that I thought, again, it was so small that I understand why not a lot of people saw it.

But Aftersun, it's a first feature from a female director, Charlotte Wells.

It's about a young girl who goes on a vacation with her father and tries to learn more about what his interior or in retrospect, is learning more about what his interior life was like.

It's heavily implied that vacation was the last time she ever saw him.

I also really liked till, it's about the aftermath of the lynching of Emmett Till.

But the way in which it's treated is really different from how I feel like filmmakers have traditionally treated stories about brutality against black people.

It's very conscientious in what it chooses to show and what it chooses not to show.

And in so doing, I think, conveys a very powerful message about the significance of the image, especially when it comes to how we depict racialized violence.

I just thought it was a really instructive movie and not as exploitatively traumatic as I think some feared it would be.

JEFF BROWN: Rebecca Sun of The Hollywood Reporter.

Thank you very much.

REBECCA SUN: Thanks, Jeff.

JOHN YANG: Empty fountains.

Quiet corridors.

Shuttered storefronts.

Once the bustling centers of a community's social scene, malls aren't the fixtures of everyday life they once were.

Ideastream Public Media in Cleveland brings us the story of how one photographer is documenting these once grand-structures.

JESSICA ANSHUTZ, Photographer: So this photo is of me, and I was 18 months old, and my mom had me at Chapel Hill Mall and she was approached by a photographer from the Akron Beacon Journal who asked if her child would pose with some tiger cubs.

So this picture ran in the Akron Beacon Journal in 1978.

My name is Jessica Anshutz, I am a documentary photographer and a storyteller.

My dad is a bricklayer and one of his first jobs was working at Rolling Acres mall during the building of the mall.

So, quite literally, from the first bricks of that place, my family has been involved.

I went on my first date at that mall, at the movie theater.

I had my very first job at the mall.

I started photographing malls in 2016.

I've always been interested in architecture and buildings, and I drove by Rolling Acres on my way to my mom's house.

Every season, I would go and take different pictures, you know, because there were trees growing up in the parking lot, and the leaves would change.

You can look at the storefronts and know from the colors and patterns, like what store used to be there.

There might be a label scar.

All of the plants were dead.

The fountain was empty.

It just it smelled old and moldy and musty, but it's still, you know, it was a mall.

With malls now, they've taken all the seating out.

You know, you don't see fountains.

Like even plants are hard to come by.

And it's just this big white box that you go in, you shop, and you leave.

When I visit malls, I am very immersed in the actual experience of it.

I shop while I'm there if I can.

We'll get a snack.

We'll go sit by the fountain if they have one.

And I think that lends itself to photos that are a little more atmospheric.

And I feel like my photos are a little more intimate.

I've always had a camera.

My parents put one in my hands, very young, I will see something or experience something, and if it's impactful enough, I want to know everything about it.

I'm looking at it from more of, like, wanting to document these places while they're still around and engaging with people and just enjoying the nostalgia.

But I'm also not a person who is like and I think mall should still exist.

In a lot of ways, the time of the mall has passed.

I do think it's important for photos and the folklore of a mall to still exist.

There's definitely an interest.

And I've noticed locally, like, if I post pictures, local people are just like, oh, my gosh, I haven't thought about that place in so long.

And it just -- it sparks all of these memories and discussions that reinforce what I'm doing.

And if I can be the person who helps them spark these memories and spark these conversations, then that's fantastic.

I love it.

JOHN YANG: Online right now, ahead of tomorrow night's Academy Awards, see our coverage of all things Hollywood and film, including interviews with nominees.

All that and more is on our website, Pbs.org/NewsHour.

And that is "PBS News Weekend" for this Saturday.

I'm John Yang.

For all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us.

See you tomorrow.