Morning Edition

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Yesterday's ruling on health care took the financial markets by surprise. Stocks were mixed with some shares finishing the day sharply higher. By the end of the day, stock traders seemed to shrug off the ruling.

NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And European leaders worked through the night last night, at a summit in Brussels aimed at tackling the eurozone's worsening debt crisis.

PHILIP REEVES, BYLINE: NPR's Philip Reeves is there and says they've reached an agreement on at least some issues.

Spain and Italy are among the largest economies in Europe. Their borrowing costs have been spiraling towards unsustainable levels. Spain has warned that it can't afford to pay them for much longer.

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Our last word in business today comes from a giant in the advertising industry. Her name is Shelly Lazarus. The Brooklyn native began working at the ad agency Ogilvy and Mather at a time when the industry looked much like the one portrayed in the TV show "Mad Men."

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

An industry run mostly by men. It was 1971 when Shelly Lazarus arrived at the company, fresh from Columbia University, with an MBA - a time when few women were earning business degrees.

The Supreme Court's decision removes much of the uncertainty for businesses involved in health care. Renee Montagne talks to Karen Ignani of America's Health Insurance Plans, the insurance industry's trade group, about the impact of the Supreme Court's ruling on the health care law.

It's 9:45 a.m. Thursday at the headquarters of Health Plan One, a health insurance agency that sells private policies. It's the morning of what is the biggest court decision ever regarding health insurance. Will the court uphold the health-care bill? Will it strike it down?

"Either way is fine with me," says Bill Stapleton, the company's CEO.

Bishop Ricardo Ramirez's grandmother lived a long and full life. But it was the way Francisca Espitia approached her final years that may have impressed her grandson the most.

Ramirez, 75, recently visited StoryCorps to remember his grandmother, whom he called Panchita, in a family story that begins in 1981. That's when he was elevated to bishop in the church. The occasion called for a reception — so Ramirez called his grandmother.

Depending on whom you ask, the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the federal health care law will either help businesses grow or it will make them more hesitant to hire.

Thursday's decision to uphold the law, including the provision requiring individuals to buy insurance, has some far-reaching implications in the business world.

Dan Danner, CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business, a business lobby that helped bankroll the suit seeking to strike down the law, said the 5-4 decision was unambiguously bad for business.

The Supreme Court's decision to uphold nearly all of the Affordable Care Act may move the debate to the presidential campaign trail. But it shifts much of the burden of implementing the law to the states.

States are actually responsible for the lion's share of getting people without insurance covered under the health law.