Leaders Of Indiana Companies 'Deeply Concerned' Over LGBT Discrimination Law

In a letter to Gov. Mike Pence (R) and state Republican leaders on Monday, the CEOs of nine different large companies headquartered in Indiana expressed concern that the state's controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act would lead to discrimination against employees.

The law would allow corporations or private citizens to cite their religious beliefs as a defense if they are sued, which many say would make discrimination against LGBT individuals permissible. While Pence has said that the intent of the law was not to discriminate, the CEOs said on Monday that intent was not relevant.

"Regardless of the original intention of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, we are deeply concerned about the impact it is having on our employees and on the reputation of our state," the executives, which included leaders from Angie's List and Eli Lilly, wrote in the letter. "All of our companies seek to promote fair, diverse and inclusive workplaces. Our employees must not feel unwelcome in the place where they work and live."

The executives urged Pence and the legislative leaders to immediately pass new legislation that would clarify that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act cannot be used to justify discrimination based on gender and sexual identity. Pence has said that legislators would clarify the law, but the governor has also indicated that he is not interested in providing specific protections for gay and lesbian individuals in his state.

On Monday, the mayor of Indianapolis signed an executive order reaffirming that groups doing business with the city must abide by its Human Rights Ordinance, which prohibits discrimination against LGBT individuals. Many of the companies whose executives signed the letter to Pence and Republican leaders on Monday are headquartered in Indianapolis.

Several corporations have condemned the Indiana law, including Apple and Yelp. Connecticut Gov. Daniel Malloy (D) signed an executive order on Monday banning travel to Indiana on Monday, joining the mayors of Seattle and San Francisco, who have imposed similar bans.

Indiana Republicans leaders have said that they were "shocked" at the backlash over the bill.

Read the full letter below:

CEOs RFRA Letter

Apple CEO Tim Cook Says Anti-Gay Religious Freedom Laws Are Dangerous

NEW YORK (AP) — Apple CEO Tim Cook said that so-called "religious objection" legislation being introduced in a number of states is dangerous and bad for business.

The bills, like the one enacted last week in Indiana, create a legal framework for individuals, mostly business owners, to claim that a law or regulation mandated by the government infringes on their religious beliefs.

In an op-ed piece for The Washington Post, the leader of the nation's largest corporation said that the bills under consideration "have the potential to undo decades of progress toward greater equality."

He cited actions taken by lawmakers in Texas, Indiana and Arkansas, but said that a "wave of legislation" has been introduced in more than two dozen states.

Cook said he was opposing the legislation on behalf of Apple Inc. He came out as gay in October, saying that he wanted to make a difference for others.

In a letter he wrote then, Cook said, "there are laws on the books in a majority of states that allow employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation. There are many places where landlords can evict tenants for being gay, or where we can be barred from visiting sick partners and sharing in their legacies. Countless people, particularly kids, face fear and abuse every day because of their sexual orientation."

Cook said in his criticism of religious objection laws that he has great respect for religious freedom, but that it can never be "used as an excuse to discriminate."

The legislation is not a political or religious issue, but rather "about how we treat each other as human beings," Cook said.

"Opposing discrimination takes courage. With the lives and dignity of so many people at stake, it's time for all of us to be courageous," Cook said.

Apple's Tim Cook To Donate All His Money, Magazine Says

(Adds details on Cook's growing public presence, background)

March 26 (Reuters) - Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook is joining the roster of the very rich who are giving away their wealth.

Fortune magazine cited the head of the world's largest technology corporation as saying he planned to donate his estimated $785 million fortune to charity - after paying for his 10-year-old nephew's college education.

"You want to be the pebble in the pond that creates the ripples for change," Cook told the magazine.

Fortune estimated Cook's net worth, based on his holdings of Apple stock, at about $120 million. He also holds restricted stock worth $665 million if it were to be fully vested.

The 54-year-old CEO's revelation in Fortune's lengthy profile of him is an example of the increasingly public philanthropy of the world's richest people.

Billionaire financier Warren Buffett is encouraging the very wealthy to give away at least half their worth in their lifetimes through the "Giving Pledge," whose website lists such luminaries as Microsoft Corp's Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook Inc and Oracle Corp's Larry Ellison.

While Cook's largesse could not begin to approach the scale of a Gates or Zuckerberg, both worth billions of dollars, the Apple CEO told Fortune he hopes to make a difference.

Cook, who is not listed on the website, is known as an intensely private person who shuns the spotlight on philanthropy.

In recent years, however, he has begun speaking out more openly about issues ranging from the environment to civil rights. Cook, who recently revealed he was gay, spoke out against discrimination of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual communities during his induction into the Alabama Academy of Honor last year.

He told Fortune he has started donating money to unspecified causes quietly and is trying to develop a more "systematic approach" to philanthropy that goes beyond writing checks. (Reporting by Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru and Edwin Chan in San Francisco; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Andre Grenon)

How To Get 8 Extra Minutes Of Sleep Every Day, Without Hitting Snooze

When you have more control over when and where you work, you get more sleep.

That's according to a new study published in the March issue of Sleep Health, which found that employees at an IT company slept an average of one hour longer each week when their bosses were supportive of work-life balance and gave workers the freedom to decide their own work schedules.

That translates into about eight extra minutes a day -- basically one hit on the snooze button.

“Who wouldn’t want a snooze alarm effect every day?” asked Ryan Olson, an occupational health psychologist at Oregon Health & Science Universities and one of several researchers who worked on the study, part of a larger project funded by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Before the experiment at the IT company, one worker told researchers she woke up at 4:30 a.m. to get an early start and avoid evening rush hour traffic. With the new flex rules, she now gets up at around 6:00 a.m. and starts working at 7:00. “I get more sleep than I've had in years,” she said in the research paper.

Most of the advice on how to get more sleep is centered around things an individual can do: practices like yoga, mindfulness and turning off all digital devices an hour before bed. And of course, there are shelves full of medications offering a drugged-out shut-eye.

What’s notable about the new study is that the researchers -- from Harvard, Penn State, Portland State University and elsewhere -- looked at what companies could do to help workers, not what individual workers could do to help themselves.

The broader aim of their project, which encompasses several studies, is to see what happens when companies take steps to help reduce the amount of work-family conflict workers face. This particular paper showcases one delightful result: Employees slept more when they had more control over their work and were less stressed about balancing the competing demands of home and work.

The research is notable considering that about 30 percent of U.S. workers sleep less than six hours a night, according to the CDC.

For the study, randomly selected groups of workers at the IT company were given the flexibility to decide when and where they could work, as long as they got their jobs done. Their sleep was tracked digitally with smartwatches. The employees were observed over a year-long period and compared to a control group.

Workers who had control over their time were smart about structuring it. “If a person with a bad commute has the freedom to schedule and avoid traffic, they can find more time for family and sleep,” Olson said.

Employees were not just told “work whenever!” and left to figure it out. Managers were given training on how to create an environment that supported the flexibility policy. Olson said leaders were told to be good role models when it comes to work-life balance and to be emotionally supportive of workers, asking them things like, “What can I do to help you get your work done?” Some of those conversations allowed workers to express personal issues and helped managers figure out how to make their employees' lives easier.

“Supervisors were aware and supportive of everyone having a life outside of work,” said Olson. They were accommodating of various scheduling demands -- people didn’t have to ask if they could work from home one morning or leave early to pick up a sick kid, he said.

To be sure, there are millions of shift workers in the U.S. who have much less control over their schedules. A forthcoming part of this big study addresses that by examining work-family conflict at a long-term care facility where the law requires a certain number of staff members to be present, reducing the amount of flexibility available.

However, Olson pointed out that there are still ways to make work environments like the care facility more friendly to workers' needs. Managers could give workers more advanced notice of their schedules and the freedom to trade shifts with colleagues. And bosses can still be understanding. “In the hourly environment, you can still provide emotional support for people,” he said.

H/T: Quartz

Number Of Uninsured Fell By More Than 11 Million Since Passage Of Obamacare, CDC Reports

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of uninsured U.S. residents fell by more than 11 million since President Barack Obama signed the health care overhaul five years ago, according to a pair of reports Tuesday from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Although that still would leave about 37 million people uninsured, it's the lowest level measured in more than 15 years.

The most dramatic change took place in comparing 2013 with the first nine months of 2014. As the health care law's major coverage expansion was taking effect, the number of uninsured people fell by 7.6 million over that time.

That's "much bigger than can possibly be explained by the economy," said Larry Levitt of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. "The vast majority has to be due to the Affordable Care Act."

Monday was the law's fifth anniversary, and supporters and detractors again clashed over its impact.

Obama says the law in many ways is "working even better than anticipated."

House Speaker John Boehner says it amounts to a "legacy of broken promises."

The health care law offers subsidized private coverage to people who don't have access to it on the job, as well as an expanded version of Medicaid geared to low-income adults, in states accepting it.

The White House says 16 million people have gained health insurance, a considerably higher estimate than Tuesday's report from CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. The White House includes results from the law's second signup season, stretching into this year.

The CDC reports compared the first nine months of 2014 with annual statistics going back as far as 1997, from the National Health Interview Survey. Among the highlights:

— The number of uninsured dropped from 48.6 million in 2010 to 37.2 million for the period from Jan.-Sept. last year. That amounted to 11.4 million fewer uninsured since the signing of the health care law.

— In 2014, about 27 million people said they had been without coverage for more than a year.

— Some 6.8 million people were covered through the health care law's new insurance markets during July-Sept. of 2014.

— The most significant coverage gains last year came among adults ages 18-64. Nearly 40 million were uninsured in 2013. But that dropped to 32.6 million in the first nine months of 2014.

— States that moved forward with the law's Medicaid expansion saw a bigger decline in the share of their residents uninsured.

The main question hanging over the law now is a Supreme Court case in which opponents argue that its subsidies are illegal in most states. They contend that the exact wording of the law only allows subsidized coverage in states that have set up their own insurance markets. Most have not done so, relying instead on the federal HealthCare.gov.

The administration counters that the context of the law makes it clear the purpose was to expand coverage in every state. A decision is expected to be announced by late June.

Antibiotic Use In Meat Is Soaring

BLT sandwiches may need to add an A to the acronym -- for antibiotics.

Soaring demand for meat across the world has caused a major uptick in the amount of antimicrobial drugs in pork, beef and poultry, according to a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

But as bacon sales sizzle and China -- where pork is the favored meat -- becomes wealthier, pig farmers around the world are meeting demand by using about four times as much antibiotics per pound of meat as cattle ranchers. Poultry is a close second.

This charts shows that pigs, for the most part, consume the highest density and amount of antibiotics.

The antibiotics serve two purposes. First, they help fatten up livestock at a faster rate. Second, they keep animals healthy despite being raised in overcrowded, filthy conditions where disease spreads easily.

In 2010, farmers around the world used more than 63,000 tons of antibiotics to raise livestock. By 2030, the researchers expect that number to rise to more than 105,000 tons.

“People are getting richer and want to eat more meat,” Thomas Van Boeckel, an epidemiologist at Princeton University and an author of the study, told The Huffington Post by phone. “Antibiotics help to provide a lot of meat for people who can afford it.”

Consumption of antibiotic-fed meat poses a major threat to humanity. Exposure to human antibiotics through meat has given rise to antibiotic-resistant “superbugs,” which some researchers suggest could kill up to 10 million people worldwide by 2050 if left unchecked.

As awareness of this threat grows, some companies have removed antibiotics from their meat supply. Earlier this month, McDonald’s vowed to remove human antibiotics from its chicken supply, though animal antibiotics would continue to be used and the human drugs would remain in beef and pork products. Chicken chain Chick-fil-A removed all antibiotics from its chicken last year.

But Chipotle remains the food industry’s poster child for antibiotic-free meat. The burrito chain showed its commitment earlier this year when it suffered a pork shortage after discovering issues with its supplier.

Still, the industry seems unlikely to change unless more consumers demand antibiotic-free meat. Legislation has done little to stymie the growth of the use of antibiotics in the United States. In China, no such legislation exists.

“If things change at all, it’ll be because customers demand better products, like organic bacon,” Van Boeckel said. “But, of course, not everyone can afford that.”

Why Inequality Is Up, But Support For Doing Anything About It Isn't

Something strange is happening in the U.S. economy: Inequality has risen, but there hasn’t been a rising demand to do anything about it.

A new Brookings Institution paper by Yale political scientist Vivekinan Ashok, Princeton economist Ilyana Kuziemko and Yale economist Ebonya Washington looks at why this has been the case.

They find that support for increased redistribution -- shifting wealth and income from the top to the bottom through policies like increased taxes and an expanded social safety net -- has remained flat because of two demographic groups: people over the age of 65 and African-Americans.

Support for redistribution among these two populations has dropped in recent decades, the study finds, leading to the overall support for policies that reduce inequality to remain stagnant.

One big reason older people’s support for redistribution has been falling is that they like what they have (Medicare) and fear that increasing benefits for other people would mean losing some of the benefits they already enjoy. The study finds that older Americans' fear that widening the safety net would decrease their existing benefits accounts for 40 percent of their drop in support for redistribution.

It turns out that "keep your government hands off my Medicare" actually helps explain how older Americans think about inequality.

That appears to be an American quirk. In contrast to other developed countries, the authors note that "the elderly in the U.S. are the only immutable group entitled to government health insurance." In other countries where inequality has increased but there is already universal health care, the elderly haven’t decreased their support for redistribution.

Once it’s properly assembled, the safety net seems to be self-reinforcing: Universal health care, itself a form of redistribution, seems to make redistribution more popular. When the safety net is haphazard and incomplete, some interest groups are afraid that any improvement or expansion will harm them.

Among African-Americans, the study finds that about half of the falling support for redistribution is due to decreased support for race-based aid. "Blacks," the authors write, "while more likely than whites to support racially-targeted government aid, are converging toward the opinion of whites" on issues like the relationship between luck, hard work and economic reward.

And that, the authors note, raises a huge question: "Why is support for race-targeted aid decreasing during a period in which the black-white wage gap has stagnated?"

Because of this paper, we know more about who is decreasing their support for reducing inequality and have an inkling of why. But knowing that, Justin Wolfers of Peterson Institute for International Economics notes, only drives home "just how puzzling the whole trend is."

Why It's A Big Deal That Google's Chairman Was Called Out For Interrupting A Woman

A powerful male executive reportedly interrupted a powerful female official while she was speaking at a panel discussion at South by Southwest, the tech and culture love-fest currently happening in Austin, Texas.

That’s not unusual. Women often get interrupted while speaking on panels and in meetings, and studies show that women are interrupted at higher rates than men.

What’s remarkable in this case is that Google Chairman Eric Schmidt actually got called out for doing it -- by an employee of Google, no less.

Schmidt had reportedly been interrupting and talking over Megan Smith, the United States' chief technology officer and a former Google executive. Along with writer Walter Isaacson, Schmidt and Smith were speaking at a panel on innovation, and their conversation actually touched on diversity issues in tech, according to reports.

During a Q&A session after the panel, audience member Judith Williams, Google’s diversity manager, asked Smith how she felt about getting interrupted. Did she feel there was some kind of unconscious gender bias at play?

In her answer, Smith didn't directly address what happened, but she did discuss the issue more generally, explaining how she sometimes goes unheard at meetings, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Schmidt didn't say anything. Neither Williams nor any of the panel participants responded to The Huffington Post's requests for additional comment.

Others, however, had a stronger response. “The crowd cheered at [Williams’] comment,” according to PopSugar, which was one of the first to report on the exchange.

Thank you to whoever respectfully asked the cut off question! Glad other people have noticed @USCTO #askwalter #SXSW2015

— Haley van Dyck (@haleyvandyck) March 16, 2015

“@haleyvandyck: @egmorant @judithmwilliams amazing. Well thank you Judith!” You're welcome!

— Judith Williams (@judithmwilliams) March 16, 2015

Williams leads Google’s unconscious bias training (yes, that’s a thing). More than 26,000 Google employees have gone through the training, she wrote in a New York Times op-ed last year. The training, Williams argued, "has created a culture where employees are comfortable with -- and held accountable for -- calling out prejudice, both blatant and subtle."

Clearly, Williams herself is pretty comfortable calling out problems. Still, who knows what all those Google employees do with that training -- the company's numbers on gender diversity aren't so great. Seventy-nine percent of Google's leaders are men, according to the company's most recent diversity report.

“Google has a very open conversation on unconscious bias,” said Joelle Emerson, co-founder of Paradigm, a strategy firm that helps companies -- such as Pinterest -- increase diversity and inclusiveness.

Emerson told HuffPost that Schmidt's interruption of Smith on the panel wasn't unusual. She often hears complaints from women in tech about getting interrupted. “It’s a big problem in meetings,” she said. “It’s hard for me to get through a meeting without getting interrupted.”

"What was an aberration is that someone spoke about it,” Emerson said, noting that Schmidt likely didn’t realize what he was doing. In studies she's looked at, researchers sat in on meetings and measured the amount of time people spoke and how often they were interrupted. Most people had no idea they were hogging the floor and not letting their colleagues finish their sentences, she said.

Emerson works with companies to improve dynamics in situations where gender roles come into play -- not just in meetings, but in hiring and performance reviews as well. She said that one solution to the problem is to have a strong meeting leader or panel moderator who can rein in the interrupters and ask the quiet participants to speak up.

“Diversity trainings aren’t effective,” Emerson said. “You have to change processes.”

What happened at SXSW is a start. “Call it out when you see it happening. That’s a good first step," she said.

Women are more likely to get cut off mid-sentence, according to several studies. Most recently, researchers at George Washington University found that women were “the more interrupted gender” -- getting interrupted even by women. When men were talking with women, they interrupted 33 percent more often than when they were talking with men, the study found. Women were even more careless about cutting off women -- they interrupted 150 percent more.

“It’s not so much who’s doing the talking,” said Dr. Adrienne Hancock, who led the research, “just that they’re talking to a woman.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story said that Emerson had conducted research on meeting participation. She did not. Emerson has studied that research.

Starbucks Wants Employees To Start Conversations About Race With Customers

An internal meeting with Starbucks employees held three months ago stirred a powerful discussion on race in America. It has since prompted the company’s CEO Howard Schultz to officially extended the invitation to join the conversation to customers across the country.

On Monday, the coffee giant launched a new campaign called “Race Together,” which aims to tackle the polarizing topic through a series of steps built to stimulate action and encourage customers to engage in conversations on race with Starbucks baristas.

“[‘Race Together’] is an opportunity to re-examine how we can create a more empathetic and inclusive society -- one conversation at a time,” Schultz said in a statement on the company’s website.

Starbucks has sparked and sustained a growing discussion on race among its employees after Schultz held an internal meeting at the company’s headquarters in Seattle, following the deaths of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and Staten Island, New York.

More than 400 employees attended the impromptu meeting in December 2014 and were given an open forum to candidly discuss race among their colleagues and share ideas and solutions on how to address the topic through a collective, company-wide mission.

“This was not about demanding change, but demonstrating a willingness to embrace change and begin to bridge the divide to empathy,” Linda Mills, a Starbucks spokeswoman, told The Huffington Post in an email.

“As these events came to an end, we realized that this is the beginning of a conversation and one we intend to continue as a company into the future.”

As part of the campaign, baristas are encouraged to engage in conversations on race with customers and distribute branded cups with the words “Race Together” handwritten on them.

"If a customer asks you what this is, try to engage in a discussion that we have problems in this country in regards to race and racial inequality,” Schultz said in a video shared by the company this week.

The company has also partnered with USA Today to release a special newspaper supplement on March 20th, which will include “conversation starters” that also urge customers to carry the discussion online using the hashtag #RaceTogether.

According to newspaper, readers will also be asked to fill in a blank in one question: “In the past year, I have been to the home of someone of a different race ___ times.”

Schultz -- who has involved the company in several previous political discussions including a petition urging the end of the federal government shutdown as well as a pledge to hire more veterans, has been vocal on national debates but perhaps none as sensitive as the topic of race.

"The enduring success of Starbucks has been made possible because we as an organization, collectively and individually, have taken our company personal -- who might be different from you but doesn't have the same chance, the same opportunity and for that manner, may feel a sense of helplessness because of the unconscious bias people have towards that person," Schultz said.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misstated the location of Seattle.

'Managers Told Me To Put Mustard On It': Fast-Food Workers Say Burns Are Rampant, File OSHA Complaints

More than two dozen low-wage McDonald's workers filed health and safety complaints against the fast-food chain on Monday, alleging that understaffing and time pressures in stores have led to burns, falls and other injuries, according to the worker group representing them.

The 28 complaints, involving stores in 18 cities, were filed with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the relevant state agencies tasked with ensuring safe workplaces. The workers submitted them with the support of Fight for $15, the union-backed labor coalition that's been agitating for a $15 minimum wage and union recognition in the industry. OSHA confirmed to The Huffington Post that it received the federal complaints Monday.

One Chicago worker, Brittney Berry, alleged that she was so harried one day she slipped and caught her arm on the grill, leading her to be hospitalized and suffer nerve damage. She said she was advised by managers to treat the burn with a condiment.

"My managers kept pushing me to work faster," Berry, who was arrested last year in an act of civil disobedience against McDonald's, said in a statement. "The managers told me to put mustard on it, but I ended up having to get rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. This is exactly why workers at McDonald’s need union rights."

The vast majority of McDonald's stores are operated by franchisees rather than the fast-food company, but in a Monday statement, Fight for $15 argued that the responsibility to keep workers safe ultimately falls on McDonald's.

"McDonald’s sets minimal health and safety standards for all franchisees, but even these modest measures are not properly enforced," the group said. "The company watches like a hawk nearly every aspect of its franchisees’ business operations via regular inspections, but it too often ignores health and safety problems."

"McDonald’s and its independent franchisees are committed to providing safe working conditions for employees in the 14,000 McDonald’s Brand U.S. restaurants," McDonald's spokeswoman Heidi Barker Sa Shekhe said in a statement. "We will review these allegations. It is important to note that these complaints are part of a larger strategy orchestrated by activists targeting our brand and designed to generate media coverage."

The safety complaints are indeed part of a broader shaming campaign that's brought unprecedented scrutiny to the working conditions in fast food. For more than two years, Fight for $15, which is funded by the Service Employees International Union, has organized a highly successful series of strikes by workers at McDonald's, KFC, Taco Bell and other restaurants in cities across the country. Much of that attention has been focused on McDonald's.

Workers and their allies are now fighting the company on multiple legal fronts. They've brought wage theft lawsuits against franchisees and named McDonald's itself as a defendant. They've filed reams of unfair labor practices charges with the National Labor Relations Board, succeeding in having the fast-food company named as a joint employer alongside its franchisees. And in January they filed a civil rights lawsuit alleging discrimination against African-American workers in McDonald's stores.

Coinciding with the filing of OSHA complaints, the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, a federation of worker safety groups, commissioned a poll of fast-food workers by Hart Research Associates, a firm that often polls for labor and progressive groups. Hart's Guy Molyneux confirmed to HuffPost that the poll was done online, via Facebook, in a manner in which some respondents were eligible to win gift cards -- a method the firm has been criticized for using in the past. Molyneux defended the method Monday.

"I have not seen any plausible or persuasive reason to think that compromises people's response in any way," he said.

According to Hart's survey of 1,426 adults in the industry, 87 percent reported having at least one injury in the past year, and 79 percent said they had been burned at some point during that time. Two-thirds said they had been cut, and one-third said they had hurt themselves while lifting or carrying items in their store. Twenty-three percent said they fell on a wet or oily floor.

Hart said its most shocking finding related to how burns are handled.

"Incredibly, one-third (33%) of all burn victims say that their manager suggested wholly inappropriate treatments for burns, including condiments such as mustard, mayonnaise, butter, or ketchup, instead of burn cream," the firm wrote.

Correction: The original post incorrectly stated that the poll was commissioned by Fight for $15; in fact, it was commissioned by NCOSH. This post has also been updated to explain Hart's polling method.

Obama Is Smack In The Middle Of A Brewing Fight Over Workplace Wellness

If you work for a big company that offers you health insurance, chances are that your employer has asked you to take part in some kind of "workplace wellness" program. It might mean nothing more than answering a few questions about your diet and exercise habits. Or it could mean providing more detailed information about your medical status and lifestyle -- and, in some cases, agreeing to individualized targets for weight loss, blood pressure and other vital health indicators.

In principle, the choice to participate in the program is yours. But if you say no, your employer might charge you higher health insurance premiums, to the tune of thousands of extra dollars a year.

Is that proper? Is that legal? Those questions are the subject of a dispute that has pit consumer advocates, who are leery of these arrangements, against employers, who gush about them.

It's not clear whose side the Obama administration wants to take.

The purpose of workplace wellness programs, as the term implies, is to keep employees from getting sick and thereby to hold down the cost of company health insurance. The programs take many forms. At their best, they help workers with chronic medical problems find their way to professionals and organizations, such as dietitians and smoking cessation groups, that promote better health. About a decade ago, a handful of large employers that tried these programs reported significant savings, and that got the attention of corporate America. Today, according to the most recent Kaiser Family Foundation/HRET survey, 74 percent of all companies offering health benefits -- and 98 percent of large companies offering health benefits -- have at least one type of wellness initiative in place.

"Instead of passively offering health care benefits, employers are working with their employees as partners," said Amanda DeBard, a spokeswoman for the Business Roundtable, which represents major corporations. "At the heart of this change are wellness programs, which are designed to give individuals the information and tools they need to be and stay well."

Whether workplace wellness programs are actually effective remains, at best, unproven. The most recent and comprehensive research has questioned whether wellness programs really reduce company medical spending, except perhaps by passing higher costs onto employees who either don’t want to participate or can’t hit health improvement targets.

"The best evidence suggests that workplace wellness programs based on financial incentives probably don’t work as intended," said Jill Horwitz, a UCLA law professor and co-author of a major study on wellness programs that appeared in the journal Health Affairs. "Given the evidence, it isn’t likely that workers are using less medical care because they responded to financial incentives to improve their health."

"So how are they working? How are companies earning such big returns on their investments in these programs? The most likely explanation is that they are making money by shifting costs to workers most at risk of failing the tests, and those workers are likely to be poorer and less healthy than their colleagues," Horwitz said.

Another problem is privacy. The screenings sometimes ask for deeply personal information -- whether people are sexually active or feeling stress at home, for example. Women have been asked whether they plan or expect to get pregnant. Although business groups that support wellness programs say that the information is kept safe and confidential, consumer advocates worry that it could end up in the hands of third parties or the employers themselves, who might use it for personnel decisions.

These arguments have been going on for a few years. But it's the financial incentives that employers are attaching to the programs and the questionnaires that have attracted scrutiny from federal regulators and, in the process, started a new political fight.

Early on, companies would offer minor financial incentives to encourage participation by workers -- a $25 gift card, for example, or maybe a $100 annual rebate on health insurance premiums. Today, some companies are offering much larger incentives, worth up to thousands of dollars a year, and tying those incentives not simply to participation in the wellness program but demonstration of progress toward health targets. As one benefits consultant told Reuters' Sharon Begley, who has been covering this story in depth, “Wellness-or-else is the trend.”

The companies introducing these schemes say that they are acting within constraints set by Obamacare, aka the Affordable Care Act. Under those guidelines, which expanded upon regulations written previously by the Clinton and Bush administrations, employers can offer incentives equal to as much as 30 percent of premiums (with an extra 20 percent for participation in tobacco testing and counseling). The law also provides a small amount of funding to promote and study the effectiveness of workplace wellness programs.

But Obamacare isn't the only statute that matters here. Another federal law, the Americans with Disabilities Act, bans employer discrimination based on someone's health or medical condition. In addition, it prohibits employers from asking about medical conditions without a legitimate business-related reason.

Enforcement of the ADA falls to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Last year the EEOC started launching lawsuits against employers for imposing substantial penalties on workers who wouldn’t complete assessments as part of wellness programs. Wisconsin-based manufacturer Flambeau, for example, allegedly informed employees that they could lose contributions to their company health insurance –- and face unspecified “disciplinary action” -- if they refused to answer health screening questions. Another Wisconsin company, Orion Energy Systems, allegedly fired an employee who declined to participate. (Both Flambeau and Orion Energy declined to comment when contacted by The Huffington Post.)

Last October, the EEOC filed a third lawsuit -- this time, against Honeywell International, which is based in New Jersey. Honeywell’s program, in place at a Minneapolis office, could cost employees who don't participate as much as $2,000 more for health care, with yet more money riding on participation in tobacco testing. Honeywell has defended the program, telling Business Insurance in November that "Honeywell wants its employees to be well-informed about their health status not only because it promotes their well-being, but also because we don't believe it's fair to the employees who do work to lead healthier lifestyles to subsidize the healthcare premiums for those who do not.”

Employer groups have complained to the EEOC, which has said it will issue a new regulation clarifying what’s legal and what’s not. They have also taken their complaints directly to the White House, reportedly threatening to withdraw support for Obamacare overall if they didn’t get their way. In early December, President Barack Obama addressed and met with members of the Business Roundtable. The next day, White House press secretary Josh Earnest reiterated the administration’s support, at least in principle, for wellness plans.

“The EEOC is an independent agency, so it’s not an agency over which we exercise much, if any, control,” Earnest said. “And I don’t want to be in a position of commenting on pending litigation. But I can say, as a general matter, that the administration, and particularly the White House, is concerned that this is -- or this at least could be -- inconsistent with what we know about wellness programs and the fact that we know that wellness programs are good for both employers and employees.”

As Earnest said, the EEOC is nominally independent. But the White House statement rankled consumer advocates, who saw it as a not-so-subtle attempt to influence the agency's deliberations.

“There’s clearly a lot of pressure on the EEOC, including from the White House,” said Jennifer Mathis, director of programs at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. “You have this public statement from Josh Earnest, suggesting that what the EEOC was doing in its litigation was wrong. And wellness industry representatives have publicly taken credit for that.” (Mathis was referring to a post at a wellness industry blog.)

In a statement to The Huffington Post, White House spokeswoman Jessica Santillo said, “The Administration supports workplace health promotion and prevention as a means to reduce chronic illness, improve health, and limit growth of health care costs, while ensuring that individuals are protected from unfair practices.”

Sources close to the agency tell The Huffington Post that a draft of the new regulations is already circulating internally at the EEOC, which means the agency could unveil them as soon as this coming week. But the agency’s rules are unlikely to be the final word on the subject. On March 3, a group of Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan, introduced legislation that would establish the legality of wellness programs that fall within Obamacare’s guidelines.

“This is yet another example of the EEOC being out of step with employers and employees,” Walberg said. “Innovative approaches that empower employees to take more control of their personal health care decisions should be encouraged, not stymied by greater government overreach.”

This Is What's Ruining The World's Sleep -- And It's Not Our Technology Addiction

Between keeping our smartphones by our pillows and binge-watching Netflix before finally closing our eyes, you'd think our ever-growing connection to technology was responsible for most of our sleep woes. But it turns out stressing about money and work takes the sleep deprivation-causing cake, according to a new survey.

In recognition of World Sleep Day and with the help of research firm KJT Group, Philips conducted a survey titled "Sleep: A Global Perspective" to help gain insight into the main sleep disturbances affecting people worldwide. They found that worrisome thoughts about work and economic or financial issues are the top two stressors keeping people awake at night. Speaking with almost 8,000 people across 10 countries, the research team gathered information regarding participants' sleep times, wake times, daily routines, sleeping environments and perceptions of their work-life balance to determine the greatest obstacles in the way of developing healthier sleep habits.

There is no question whether people believe sleep is important. Ninety-six percent of respondents said sleep is valuable to them, and sleep proved the most valuable of the 12 measured factors influencing a person's overall health and well-being. However, money and financial security ranked a close second, and 28 percent said economic and financial stress was their most common sleep disrupter, followed by work stress at 25 percent.

"Our report indicates how psychological factors can impact sleep, and how those factors can change depending on the times in which we live," Mark Aloia, Ph.D., the senior director of global clinical research for Philips, said in a statement. "Combating stress is critical to a good night's sleep, but the toughest part for people is often just getting motivated to make changes."

Speaking of changes (or lack thereof), 57 percent of participants said that while the quality of their sleep could be better, they haven't taken any measures to improve it. This gap between diagnosing a problem and implementing and maintaining steps to solve it is where much of the world falls short on healthful habits in general.

"There are a lot of things that feed into inaction in terms of healthy living," Aloia told The Huffington Post. "There's the individual, psychological component -- the feeling that my life isn't bad enough to need dramatic change -- and implementing and maintaining those changes is hard. And there's the societal component -- we wear lack of sleep like a badge, and as long as we do that as a society, we are going to make it very hard to take action at a societal level."

When it comes to sleep efficiency specifically, Aloia says employers must take the lead in allowing their employees to value their health in order to help minimize the current conflict between sleep needs and existing stress. The resulting healthy workforce isn't just helpful for the employees individually -- it's better for the company's bottom line.

Aloia also said that even though it didn't rank at the top of the list, we still shouldn't downplay the role that technology plays in disrupting the quality and quantity of our nightly shut-eye. According to the survey, 67 percent of people still sleep with their cell phones within reach, and 21 percent said that technology significantly disrupts their sleep.

"Technology is a facilitator of change, but it doesn't change behavior," he said. "On a personal level, we need to value technology enough to personalize it and create that change in our own lives." Instead of using distraction techniques like watching television (and even reading a book!) during our necessary decompression time at the end of the day, Aloia suggests trying mindfulness, meditation or gentle exercise, all of which provide a mental buffering of sorts and create hormonal changes in the body that help us work through sleep-disturbing stress.

To learn more about the survey, check out the infographic below.

Here's How To Fix The CEO Pay Problem

We’re doing CEO pay wrong.

Incentive pay -- compensation based on verifiable performance measures like stock price -- is on the rise. It’s supposed to help align executives’ interests with those of shareholders. Instead, it leads corporate boards to pay executives more than necessary, and ultimately hurts shareholders and workers.

With incentive pay, the company could end up paying the CEO for something over which he had no real influence. Or the company could end up not paying the CEO for actions that were good for the company, but for some reason didn’t raise the stock price. Most likely, the CEO will single-mindedly pursue actions that will boost the metric he’s paid on, even if they only succeed in the short term. Over the longer term, paying your CEO a fantastic amount can hurt stock performance.

The solution, according to a new paper by Peter Cebon, of the Melbourne Business School, and Benjamin Hermalin, a finance professor at the University of California’s Haas School of Business, is for the government to limit performance-based executive contracts and make informal pay agreements more attractive.

An informal contract, in its broadest and perhaps too-simple but illustrative sense, is like a board telling a CEO: “We will pay you for being a good CEO. The better a CEO you are, the more we’ll pay you.” It is, Hermalin said, really just a “series of promises” that aren’t legally enforceable.

Alluding to Odysseus’ escape from the Sirens, the paper's authors write that corporate boards setting executive pay need be to “lashed to the mast” with restrictions on the size of formal executive pay packages, which are the sorts of contracts that tie pay to objective, verifiable outcomes like the company's stock price or specific accounting metrics.

But boards can’t actually tie themselves to a mast, Hermalin noted to The Huffington Post. That’s why they need the government to restrict their options. This could be done, he said, by boosting taxes on all performance-based pay, by dramatically increasing taxes on incentive pay above a certain level, or simply putting a cap on total formal incentive-based pay.

Such regulation would encourage boards to enter into more efficient informal contracts, or what economists call relational contracts.

Having an informal contract for an executive may seem like a strange arrangement, but it's quite common for other workers. The vast majority of white-collar workers have a type of informal contract: a series of objectives established and shared between manager and employee. If and how those objectives are met is how salary and continued employment are decided. These objectives may be very well understood by the worker and his manager (hopefully, they are), and there are things the manager cannot fire the worker for or use to determine the worker's pay (see: discrimination, etc); but someone looking in from the outside with no experience in the worker's field would not be a very good judge of his informal contract.

For an informal contract to work at the executive level, there has to be mutual trust between the board and the CEO. The board also has to know a lot about its company and the CEO’s actions. That forces boards to be more engaged in, and informed about, the companies they oversee. That’s good, because when corporate directors are stretched too thin, the company’s performance suffers.

The problem with formally tying pay to stock price, Hermalin said, is that “stock performance is incredibly noisy, and a lot of that noise has nothing to do with what an executive actually did.”

The solution to that problem is for executive pay to be set on an informal basis by people who know the company and can directly observe the CEO. And if it takes government intervention in the market to achieve that, Hermalin is not too worried. There’s no “economic theorem,” he says, “that just letting boards write whatever contracts they want with their executives has to be the right course of action.”

Pepsi's Latest Ad Campaign Has Little To Do With Soda

Pepsi wants to sell you a feeling, with a little soda on the side.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the soda giant's famous "Pepsi Challenge" campaign, which asked people to do a blind taste test to see if they preferred Pepsi or Coke. To celebrate, the company is re-launching the challenge, complete with celebrities like Usher and Serena Williams, as well as Vine and Snapchat sensation Jerome Jarre. But instead of picking Pepsi or Coke, the new campaign asks fans to take part in sports, tech, design and music challenges.

A new Pepsi ad released as part of the challenge. The can dispenses emojis instead of soda.

The modernized challenge isn’t completely devoid of images of Pepsi cans, and there will be a taste test component in some markets. But the ad push centers largely around creating an emotional connection with the Pepsi brand and less on lauding the taste of its cola.

That's because the company's ethos is about more than just a bubbly drink, said Brad Jakeman, the president of PepsiCo's Global Beverages Group.

“This is a brand that has stood next to major cultural moments all around the world; it’s a brand that always operates in the consumer zeitgeist,” Jakeman said. “The brand is much bigger than a product concept, and actually that has allowed us to do a lot of interesting things with this brand beyond soda.”

It makes sense for Pepsi to minimize the campaign's focus on soda because the sugary, carbonated drink is falling out of fashion. Americans in particular are opting more often for energy drinks and enhanced waters as the nation becomes more health-conscious. PepsiCo’s snack division, Frito-Lay, has helped buoy the company amid sluggish soda sales in recent years.

The decline in millions of liters of soda sold in the U.S.

The Pepsi Challenge was first imagined as a direct provocation to the company's main rival, Coke. At the time, Coke was a big-time national brand, while Pepsi was mostly popular regionally. As a result, Pepsi had to focus on innovations -- plastic two-liter bottles and aggressive marketing -- to make a dent in Coke’s lead, according to former Pepsi CEO John Sculley.

“Everything that I was expected to do at Pepsi was about competition with Coca-Cola,” said Sculley, who is also the author of Moonshot! Game-Changing Strategies to Build Billion-Dollar Businesses.

An early Pepsi Challenge ad.

Forty years later, that strategy doesn’t make sense in a world where Coke isn’t Pepsi’s main problem. Now, changing tastes and smaller upstarts offering a wide array of alternatives to soda are some of the biggest threats to the company.

“If you’re Pepsi, you have to do something,” said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. “Trends are not going their way.”

This isn’t a problem unique to Pepsi. Legacy companies like McDonald’s and Coke are also searching for ways to give people a warm and fuzzy feeling about their brands even as shoppers eschew their products. Coke’s Super Bowl campaign encouraged viewers to make the Internet a more positive place by adding the hashtag “Make It Happy” to negative tweets, which flagged a bot to turn the text into cute cartoon images. McDonald’s also courted controversy after the chain released an ad highlighting messages like “thank you veterans” and “keep jobs in Toledo” that franchisees often feature on the signs outside their restaurants.

“What you’re seeing now is less emphasis on the product because they find themselves in this situation where the product itself is not that appealing,” said Denise Lee Yohn, a brand consultant who has worked with Burger King, New Balance and other top companies.

It’s hard to say whether creating a halo around a brand actually translates into selling more soda or burgers, Calkins said. It's easier to track the impact of old-school promotion tactics, like giving out coupons, than campaigns based on social media.

Now, the company will wait and see what kind of success it can have with a Pepsi Challenge that relies heavily on people liking it enough to tweet about it or talk about it on Facebook. “The challenge is can they come with something that’s really compelling," Calkins said.

Everything You Need To Know About The Apple Watch

You can put the Apple Watch on your wrist April 10.

That's according to Apple CEO Tim Cook, who stepped on stage Monday at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco to unveil the final details about the wearable device, which was first announced back in September. April 10 is the preorder date and the first day you'll be able to try the Watch on in an Apple Store. The product will be available to own April 24.

The most basic version of the watch, Apple Watch Sport, will start at $349 for the 38mm watch face. The 42mm face is priced at $399. Upgrading to the stainless steel version takes the starting price to $549. Finally, the 18-karat gold Apple Watch Edition starts at $10,000.

"It's not just with you, it's on you," Cook said of the new gadget.

The Apple Watch's basic features haven't changed since it was first announced in September, but Kevin Lynch, Apple's vice president of technology, went through highlights Monday. We've got the details here.

Keep in mind that for many of the features to work, the Apple Watch needs to be paired with an iPhone 5 (or later) running the latest version of iOS 8.

Here's a recap of the Apple Watch's features:

Fitness

A big draw for the Apple Watch is its suite of health and activity trackers. The built-in Activity app shows you how many calories you've burned in a day, how much exercise you've gotten, and how much you've stood up. It offers goal-tracking for each.

Credit: Apple

The device will also show you a weekly summary of your activity every Monday, and it will offer suggestions to improve your fitness in those reports. Its built-in heart sensor helps keep track of your exercise during workouts. It's water-resistant (not waterproof), so you don't have to worry about destroying it with all of your technology-enabled sweating.

Finally, outside of the basic information in the Activity app, there's a Workout app that will keep tabs on the nitty-gritty: total distance when running, average pace and so on. When you achieve personal milestones, the Fitness app will display an achievement badge on the screen, perhaps in a bid to make rigorous physical activity feel more like an Xbox game.

Glances

Important information is just a glance away on the Apple Watch. Use your finger to swipe up from the bottom of the watch face and you can check the weather, look at your calendar, control your music or check your heart rate.

Apps

It's always been clear that Apple Watch would support apps made by third-party developers. On Monday, Apple showcased a few examples and announced that they can be downloaded via a connected iPhone. Apple Watch supports WeChat, a popular Chinese messaging app, and Uber, which now lets you summon a ride straight from your wrist. An app from the W hotel will allow users to unlock their hotel room using the Apple Watch by holding it up to a "lock pad near the door handle."

Siri

Everyone's favorite digital assistant is on the watch, because of course it is. Apple Watch owners will be able to say, "Hey, Siri" into their devices and then ask for turn-by-turn directions or information about upcoming events. Siri will also allow you to dictate text messages to contacts simply by speaking into your Apple Watch.

The "Taptic Engine"

Apple Watch will tap you on the wrist when you receive a notification. Cook said Monday that any notification you get on your iPhone will be viewable on the Apple Watch.

If you want walking directions, for example, it will tap you when it's time to turn. Apple says it will provide a different "tactile sensation" depending on the alert.

It will also allow you to tap other Apple Watch wearers or share your heartbeat with them, which Apple characterizes as "simple and intimate," rather than a sobering example of mankind's inexorable march toward technological singularity.

Credit: Apple

A Screen You Can Draw On

Texting is great and all, but Apple Watch owners will be able to communicate with one another by drawing on the device's screen. The doodles will be animated, illustrating how they were drawn, and then they'll vanish from the display.

That may seem a bit inconsequential, but you might have said the same thing about Snapchat's short, self-destructing messages -- and that company is valued at $19 billion now.

Credit: Apple

Instant Messages

When you get a text message on your iPhone, the Apple Watch will be able to display it on your wrist and offer you quick ways to respond based on "the context of your message," like if someone is asking you to meet for coffee at 2 p.m. Those responses can be along the lines of, "Leaving now," or they could simply be an animated emoji.

The Apple Watch also lets you see new email messages, of course.

Phone Calls On Your Wrist

Unlike certain competitors -- like the Moto 360 smartwatch for Android -- Apple Watch allows you to answer incoming calls and have a conversation straight from your wrist, using the device's speaker and microphone. (The Moto 360 allows you to answer calls with the watch, but you have to speak into your actual phone.)

Different Watch Faces

Mickey Mouse watches are classic, and now you can have a modern version on your wrist, thanks to Apple's different watch faces.

The wide array of face options includes an astronomy-themed faceh showing the planets, a minimalistic analog display and many more.

Battery

The Apple Watch powers up via a magnetic charger on its back, and Cook said it will last for 18 hours.

***

Cook's announcement capped off weeks of speculation that turned the invitation to the event into a news item itself. Anticipation for the gadget, and its success or failure, reached a fever pitch following a new 12-page advertisement in Vogue, a cover image for Self magazine and rumors about how it could shift the company's strategy for its Apple Stores.

The Apple Watch is the company's first foray into a new product category under Tim Cook, who became Apple's CEO when Steve Jobs stepped down in 2011. It follows a record-setting, $18 billion quarter for the Cupertino tech giant.

Apple now faces the challenge of getting people to buy the wearable, which could be perceived as little more than a luxury item complementing the technology one already owns. The $10,000 gold variation of the Apple Watch, also announced Monday, does little to dispel that notion. Industry experts seem split on whether anyone will want it, though some have reminded readers that the iPhone was met with similar skepticism upon its announcement.

The Consumer Electronics Association has estimated that 10.8 million smartwatches will be sold in 2015 -- about 14 percent of the number of iPhones Apple sold in the last three months of 2014 alone.

10 Talking Points For Any Apple Watch Conversation

The Apple Watch is coming. We're about to get more details, but we know it'll ship in April and start at $349.

Expect a lot of water-cooler conversation about the new gadget as we get closer to people actually being able to buy the thing. (Too much conversation, perhaps.) You'll want some smart things to say, so we dug through some insightful writing to help you piece together an opinion.

Will anyone buy the thing?

• Yes: "What matters for adoption of a technology isn’t what’s possible for the user -- what matters is what’s easy." -- Christopher Mims, The Wall Street Journal

• No: "I don't see myself texting, getting directions, or browsing cherished photo memories on my wrist. I have a smartphone for that." -- Eugene Kim, PCMag

• Maybe: "Solid survey research suggested not only that the iPhone would fail, but also that it would fail particularly hard in the United States because our phones and cameras are good enough, already." -- Derek Thompson, The Atlantic

• Who cares? "They say [the Apple Watch] will revolutionize the way we slowly and loudly repeat ourselves into electronic devices." -- Jimmy Kimmel, "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"

Who's the device made for?

• Fashionistas: "Any tech worn that close to the body is going to have more of an emphasis on design specs and aesthetics, because it’s just so intensely personal." -- Dominic Basulto, The Washington Post

• Fitness buffs: "It reminds you to stand up at least once an hour, it suggests goals for how many calories you should burn each day, and it keeps track of your exercise." -- Lisa Eadicicco, Business Insider

• Apple fanboys: "I suspect many are jumping to the conclusion that the only reason someone will pay thousands of dollars for [a gold] Apple Watch is to wear it forever as a status symbol. Instead, people will pay thousands of dollars in order to have the opportunity to buy an Apple product that can be worn." -- Neil Cybart, Above Avalon

What else does Apple have going on?

• iPhone sales are superb: "Apple’s iPhone sales in the last three months of 2014 were more than triple Google Inc.’s total revenue reported in its last quarter ($16.52 billion). That means the iPhone is worth more than Android, Google search, Windows and Office combined." -- Thomas Halleck, International Business Times

• It's launching a streaming service: "You better believe that when Apple’s streaming music service comes out later this year, it’s going to come hard." -- Josh Constine, TechCrunch

• It might be making a car: "The Cupertino, Calif., company has several hundred employees working secretly toward creating an Apple-branded electric vehicle, according to people familiar with the matter. The project, code-named “Titan,” initially is working on the design of a vehicle that resembles a minivan, one of the people said." -- Daisuke Wakabayashi and Mike Ramsey, The Wall Street Journal

So there you have it: 10 things you can bring up whenever someone mentions the Apple Watch. You're welcome.

Courting Disaster: Obamacare Is Back At The Supreme Court, And These 6 Lives Hang In The Balance

Obamacare is back before the Supreme Court in a case that could gut the health care law and leave millions of Americans facing severe consequences.

King v. Burwell, a lawsuit that originated in conservative and libertarian think tanks, alleges that a stray phrase in the Affordable Care Act -- “an exchange established by the state” -- means the federal government isn’t allowed to provide subsidies to the residents of states that refused to establish health insurance exchanges under the law.

Only 13 states and the District of Columbia have their own exchanges. If this bid to derail the Affordable Care Act succeeds, the subsidies would disappear -- maybe immediately, maybe a little later -- for Obamacare enrollees everywhere else.

Behind the numbers, however, is a very human story. Without the subsidies, health insurance costs would spike beyond the means of low- and moderate-income recipients. As a result, close to 10 million people would lose their health coverage. Many others would face major increases in the premiums they pay for insurance.

The Huffington Post interviewed six Americans at risk of the worst effects of a high court ruling against Obamacare. We wanted to know how the law has affected their lives already, and how the absence of subsidies might affect them in the future. They told stories of life and death, financial ruin, lifelong plans in jeopardy and families disrupted. Here are those stories, as told by the people who would be living them. Karen Hines
Virginia Joe Lucas
Pennsylvania Jay Joshi
Texas Dave Price
Illinois Sheila Tyson
Alabama Jared Blitz
Arizona

Airbnb Gained A Very Powerful Friend In Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett is a fan of Airbnb.

The billionaire business magnate, who serves as chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, endorsed the room-sharing startup in a Saturday morning letter to shareholders.

The so-called Oracle of Omaha suggested the 7-year-old service, which allows users to rent lodging to each other for short periods of time, as an alternative to hotel rooms for attendees of his annual conference in Nebraska’s largest city.

Expecting record attendance, Buffett said he enlisted Airbnb to help obtain extra listings in Omaha around the time of the May conference.

“Airbnb’s services may be especially helpful to shareholders who expect to spend only a single night in Omaha and are aware that last year a few hotels required guests to pay for a minimum of three nights,” he wrote. “That gets expensive. Those people on a tight budget should check the Airbnb website.”

Airbnb said it was thankful for the support.

"Once again, we are thrilled to gain the support of Warren Buffett as we help the residents of Omaha open their homes to travelers for the annual shareholder's meeting," Maria Parra Rodriguez, an Airbnb spokeswoman, told The Huffington Post. "Not only does hosting provide guests with a unique, local experience, it also generates supplemental income for hosts that can help in many ways.”

The company has faced challenges in recent months. In October, New York’s attorney general released a report claiming that three-quarters of Airbnb’s listings in New York City were illegal.

Still, Airbnb has ponied onward. The company is raising an enormous round of funding that would value it at $20 billion, according to a report published on Friday by TechCrunch.

This story has been updated with a comment from Airbnb.