Dylan Ratigan is off today. Ari Melber (@arimelber) will be guest hosting.
The Big Story: Supreme Court Health Care Challenge: All eyes are on the Supreme Court today as the first of three straight days of oral arguments over President Obama’s health care law. It’s also the first time since Bush v. Gore in 2000 that the court is releasing audio tapes of the arguments the same day they take place. While a decision won’t come until later this summer, theidea that the high court is spending three straight days on this, to quote Vice President Biden, is a “big f-ing deal.” NBC News Justice Correspondent Pete Williams and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott will join us to discuss what we can expect tomorrow and Wednesday. (Abbott believes the Health Care Act needs to be fully repealed — we’ll find out why.)
David Walker, the President & CEO, Comeback America Initiative will also be here. In a USA Today Op-Ed on the issue, he wrote:
“What we practice is sick care rather than health care, since there are few financial incentives for physicians to practice preventive medicine… This misaligned system encourages overuse and misuse, which drives up costs and can actually harm patients.”
The Megapanel: Dan Gross (@grossdm) + Tim Carney (@tpcarney) + Sam Seder (@samseder) are here. As you may have seen by now, The Today Show’s Matt Lauer interviewed Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales. She told him that the accused shooter of 17 Afghan civilians is not the man she knows. So the one question we’re asking — how did this happen? It’s same question being asked of NATO right now, after an Afghan soldier turned on NATO troops, killing two British servicemen – the latest in a string of what’s been dubbed “green on blue violence.” Joining us to discuss is Col. Jack Jacobs.
Journey to the Bottom of the Ocean: This weekend, film director James Cameron made his first ever solo dive to the deepest part of the ocean — the Mariana Trench, almost seven miles below sea level. We’ll show you the incredible video!
Paging Dr. Smartphone: We may not have a star trek-style ‘tricorder’ but we do have smartphones and tablets that have the potential to monitor all our medical metrics. Already there are nearly 15-thousand health care apps available on your smartphone. Soon, all of us could be checking our vital signs on our phones. Eric Topol, MD, author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care will join us from San Diego, CA.
The Daily Rant: Today the family of Trayvon Martin is marching with civil rights leaders to the Sanford, Florida city commission meeting, two weeks after the teenager was killed by a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain. Keli Goff is here with her daily rant on the new age of racism in America.