captioning sponsored by wnet em sreenivasan: on this edition for saturday, ser 1: political rivals unite to offer >> we never doubted the other man's sincerity or the other man's patriotism. when all was said and done, we were on the same team. >> sreenivasan: poittical rivals to offer final farewells honoring senator john mccain; and some updates from our series, "chasing the dream: poverty and opportunity america." next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family.

the sue and edgar wachenheim foundation. the cheryl and philip milstein family. dr. p. roy avagelos.d diana t. the j.p.b. foundation. rosalind p. walter. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening, and thanks for joi dng us. it was devoted to the memory of united states senator john mccain-- a republic nominee for president, a prisoner of war, a decorated na pilot and the son and grandson of navy admirals. shamerica's political lead, with the exception of the current president, gmchered with thin family to honor the

man and his service to country. the casket bearing senator mccain's by was carried from the capitol this morning after state there yesterday. the procession to washington, d.c.'s national cathral included a stop at the vietnam veterans' memorial where the senator's widow, cindy mccai placed a wreath honoring her husband and his fellow veterans. more than 2,000 politicians, enmily, friends and members of the military attd the ruvitation-only service. president donald t was not invited and was seen leaving the white house, presumably headedvi for hiinia golf course, during the funeral service.ur the 2.5-ervice was filled with music... ♪ amazing grace. how sweet the sound ♪ >> sreenivasan: prayers and personal remembrances. >> my father is gone. john sidney mcca many things. >> sreenivasan: his daughter, meghan mccain, kept wise the tor's reputation as a

political maverick who was not afraid to criticize members of his own republican party. >> we gather here to mourn t passing of american greatness-- the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willily. the america of john mccain has gano need to be made great because america was always great. >> sreenivasan: before his death last weekend from brain cancer, john main planned much of today's ceremony, inviting former presidentbush and obama to speak. >> perhaps above all, john detested the abuse of power and could not abide bigots and swaggering despots. >> we never doubted the other man's sincerity or the other's patriotism, or that when all was id and done we were on the eam. so much of our politics, our public life, our public

discourse, can seem small and mean and petty, trafficking in bombast and insult, in phony controversies and manufactured outrage. it's a pitics that pretends to be brave and tough but in fact is born of fear. john called on us to be gger than tha he called on us to be better than that. >> sreenivasan: senatoin will be laid to rest tomorrow at the united stes naval academy in annapolis, maryland. watch the full service honoring senator john mccain on our web site, www.pbs.org/newshour >> sreenivasan: we've been

bringing you stories over the last year as part of our ongoing series on poverty and opportunity in america, "chasing tothe dream," and wanring you some updates in this program. back in may, we reported on the tru administration's proposal to change many social safety net pngrograms by expanork requirements as a condition for receiving benefits. nmeewshour weekend'n thompson went to maine, one state which already had some requirements in pnd was being credited with providing a template for the a.dministration's proposal >> reporter: in a rural pocket of maine, east of augusta, 50- year-old tim keefe lives in a spartatwo-room trailer without a bathroom or even any running water. a navy veteran, he's single and has two grown daughters. e don't need too much refrigeration this time of year. >> reporter: his only in$2me is about 00 a month in food stamps. >> you're not eating like a king, but you're eating. so, that's the important part. >> reporter: but not too long ago, things were even more

fodifficult keefe. he was working at a manufacturing plant when he suffered a wrist injury that required multiple surgeries. he lost his job and then his home. >> in here, this is where i t spst winter. >> reporter: for a time, keefe lived in a sma tent, warmed by an electric heater. adding to the hardship, keefe had no access to food stamps that's because, beginning in 2014, if you were under and you weren't caring for children, maine started enforcing a three- month time limit on food stamps unless you were working 20 hours a week, volunteering or in a job training program. eefe could do none of those things with his injured wrist, awand hunder 50. >> you wake up in the morning, you're a caveman. you've got to go find food, you've got to gather, you've got to hunt, you know? >> reporter: keefe estimates he thst 40 pounds during the ten months he went wit food benefits. then, he turned 50 last may and

became eligible again for food stamps, also known as thes upplemental nutrition assistance program, or snap. >> the snap program is a lifeline. it really is. >t > it is no the best interest of anyone to just simply hand out a check. >> reporter: mary mayhew was the commissioner of maine's hepartment oth and human from 2011 to 2017 under republican governor paul lepage. she says the state was ripe for reform when she took over administration of its safety net programs. >> the department had truly lost sight of its core mission. success was defined by the number of people coming onto welfare rather than the number of individuals who weron that pathway to self-sufficiency and independence. >> reporter: under mayhew, maine looked at the wage records of nearly 7,000 adults without dependents-- people like tim keefe-- in the one year after food stamp benefits were cut off. >> individuals left food stamps, went back to work and their

incomes increased by over 114%. they were earning more than the federal poverty level. exactly the goal that we certa ainly hoped fwe incentivized and prioritized work. >> reumporter: and the administration has taken notice. citing maine'snchanges to its program, in april, president trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to strengthen and introduce work requirements. >> i'm incredibly proud that maine is seen as a model. > amaine is not a model, it cautionary tale. >> reporter: chris hastedt is the public policy director for maine equal justice partners, an advocacy group representing low income mainers. >> for t these so-called reforms are

effective and we're helping to raise famies out of poverty and improve their ability to support their famili, it's just not happened. od reporter: hastedt notes that the same study on tamp changes in maine touted by mayhew and the trump administration is not all positive. >> two-thirds of people that had been terminated still did not have employment. that's about the same that had didn't have employment at te beginning year. but now, at the end of the year, they had neither wages nor food assistance. >> reporter: she says forcing people to work ignores the barriers often faced by many low-income people. >> jobs aren't available or the hours aren't available or transportation isn't available or childcare isn't available. but none of those factors are considered in these inflexible policies that say you either work 20 hours a week or you don't get food. >> reporter: hastedt also points to federal data showing that since 2011 maine has seen food acsecurity, which measures

ss to food, increase by nearly 9% while the national level has declined by about 11%. >> this is just part of this ideological march toward a policy that is not going to be effective, and it's only going to create more hardship for people who are impacted by it. that's what we've seen here in maine, and that's what we would arexpect to see from a sim policy in medicaid. >> reporter: medicaid, which provides healthcare for low- income americans, is jointly administered by states and the federagovernment. last year, maine asked the federal government to emd work requirts to maine's medicaid program. ricker hamilton is the state's current commissioner of health and human es, which oversees medicaid in maine. he supports adding work requirements to the progm, which is known as mainecare. >> it might be good to get you set up with maine care.

>> it mi set up with a pulmonologist now that you have mainecare. >> reporter: dr. renee fay- leblanc is the chief medical officer at greater portland health, where abouof its nearly 11,000 patients are on mainecare >> mainecare is important for people to be able to get to the place where they can work, provide for their families. >> repo that eligibility for mainecare will decline as a result of the new work requirements. dr. fay-leblanc says the consequences for losing access to m death. can be life and >> i had a patient who did not have mainecare. he was having a lot of symptoms that hadn't been explained yet or diagnosed, and yet he refused to go to the hospital because he didn't want to rack up more medical debt. and that patient died last year. and i firmly believe that if he had had access to mainecare and could have gotten his medications and a real, thorough work-up for the symptoms that he was experiencing, he wouldn't ve died. >> maine today is considered

an absolute national leader. >> reporter: mary mayhew says asking able-bodied recipients of snap benefits or mainecare to work is not about shrinking the programs or punishing those who need help. >> this is not about saving money or being puniutve. it is aecognizing that work and employment restores human dignity. i am far more concerned about the tendency of these program to cast a wide net and trap people than i am that someone is going to fall through the cracks. sreenivasan: since this report aired in may, the house of representives passed an date to the farm bill in june that expanded the number of adults who would be required to work in order to receive snap benefits.th

e passage was cheered by president trump, who tweeted:" so to see work requirements included." in maine, mary mayhew, who was featured in our segment, lost her primary in the run for governor, and the state is still awaiting approval from the federal health and human services to add work requirements for medicaid benefi. kentucky, the first state to have its work reirements for medicaid recipients approved, ipwas sued by medicaid recients in the state. a federal judge ruled that the mandate was "arbitrary d capricious" and vacated that approval. that decision could have repercussions fomultiple states that have submitted similar requests for work requirements. for more, i spoke recently with sara rosenbaum, a professor of health law and policy at george washington university milken institute school of public health. sara rosenbaum, thanks for joining us. so let's first talk about kentucky. it was poised to be the first state the country to add wor requirements for some medicaid

recipients, but just days bef ee takiect, a judge blocked the new rules. why? >> kensatucky's pro like the proposals in other states, ally boiled down to removing people from medicaid. the state by itsf projected a 15% drop in medicaid beneficiaries, and what the judge said was, you haven't shown us how an experiment on the poor that removes tens of thousands of people from e medicaid program furthers the objection of the medicaid program, so you haven't done your job under the law. you have to go back and explain y removing coverage from people furthers the objectives of medicaid. >> sreenivasan: all right. let's talk a little bit about that word "experiment." are the 50 states to basicallyve 0 different experiments on what could and what could not work, and in this case what could and wt could not sued to stop? >> medicaid does not, except in one very particularized circumstance, allow a state to

impose work requirements, so in order to conduct a work experiment, and i use the word "experiment" quite literallyhe here,federal government has to turn to a different provision of law, one that actually predates medica itself. and so in order use this special authority, which has been around for 55 years now, the secretary is essenally no longe approving a state program under the medicade statute. he's appoving it as an experiment. >> sreenivasan: there's going to be people who look around and say, look, t have horically low unemployment. what's the harm in addi work requirements to getting this incredible benefit of healthcare. >> in fact, the unemploymt rates as you point out are historically low. the vast majority of poor peop work, look for work. the nature of labor in low-wage market, which is where low-income adults are obviously, is that it comes in cycles.

you may get more hours. you may get few hours. you may be called in for time or gelaid off for a while. you may be a seasonal worker. and so there's a normal fluctuating to and fro, andan effort that can be made to help people who are in low-wage jobs who need skills, training, who need help finding work is afu wondthing, and the results of voluntary work programs are actually quite strong. what is a real head scratcher here, from a policy point of view, is why you would ever threaten people's health insurance coverage over this when there is no evidence, in fact, that more than the smallest handful of low-income people just don't work and don't want to work and have no reason tot to work. to putisk people's coverage lymply because they can't report in their monours clocked at work, when, in fact, there is a tiny handful of people who,

you know, are the proverbial needles in the haystack, is i think what makes the whole enterprise so irrational and frankly so inhumane. >> sreenivasan: all right, sara rosenbaum, a professor of health, law, and policy at george washington youth. thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: student loans oe the second largest cau personal debt for americans, next to home mortgages. for baby boomers over the age of 60, student loan debt is growing faster than any other age group as parents and grandparents help finance the education of their children and grandchildren. last october, pbs newshour's megan thompson rorted on how the nation's $1.4 trillion student loan debt burd is putting the financial stability of baby boomers in jeopardy.

>> reporter: nancy kukay works at a community college in raryland, coordinating technical education ms. she's worked in education most ol her career and loves her job. but at 65 years she had imagined retiring by now. >> i can't afford to retire. i could never make the payments. >> reporter: payments for student loans she took out for her son andrew about a decade ago. she pays around $500 a month on the nearly $75,000 she owes on loans she took out and others she co-signed with her son. by her math, she'll probably be paying on her loans alone for another 11 years. >> even if i started drawing on my retirement and social security together, i still wouldn't have enough monthly to make those payments. it's certainly not where i hoped to be at this stage in life. >> reporter: the number of a americans age older with student loan debt qued between 2005 and 2015 to nearly three milln, and the average amount they owe has nearly

doubled from about $12,000 to almost $24,000. >> student loans are structured to be id over a very long period of time. they have no statute of limitations, which means that they follow yo they can follow you till you die, literally. >> reporter: attorney persis yu directs the student loan borrower assistance project at the national consumer law center in boston. >> there are a lot of borrowers who are out there who still have their own student loan debts from the '70s, from >>e '80s. think originally it was, like, $27,000. >> reporter: 64-year-old annette orlaez of boston is still paying about $300 a month the loan she took out 20 years ago to pursue graduate degrees in american studies, a loan she expects to be paying for another shn years. worked for non-profits serving children and the shderly, but her income never reached the levehad hoped. >> i'm making now what i made in the '80s. i'm making about $42,000 a year. >>tolks with student loan d typically save less than folks without student loan debt.

and then, once they're in retirement, if they are repaying loans,ertainly that is a liability that they wouldn't otherwise have to pay for when they're on a fixed a. limited inco >> reporter: like pelaez, 27% of americans with student loans borrowed for their own education. but most-- more than 70%-- borrowed for their children's or grandchildren's education. peopleike nancy kukay. kukay, who's divorced, took out abt $46,000 in her name an cosigned for around $34,000 more with her son andrew, who graduated from the university of south carolina in 2008. >> i entered into that now as i... in hindsight, without nearly enough information. >> reporter: kukay obtained about half of the $46,000 she borrowed for her son's education through a federal loan program called parent plus. the number of parent plus borrowers has grown by 60% sinc0 25 to 3.5 million americans. the national consumer law centes

ays some families can borrow more than they can afford under parent plus because the program lets them borrow as much as the ncllege says they need without verifying theire. >> so, you know, there is some very minimal counseling that is required when folks take out federal loans. the other component is, a lot of these families don't have a lot of otr options because education is expensive. so, a lot of milies feel trapped, and they feel like they have to take out this because th fey want to provi their kids and they want their kids to have a better future. >> reporter: and that's exactly what nancy kukay wanted for her son. she says she wasn't too worried about andrew's ability to pay off his loans once he graduated. >> i kept telling him-- and i thought this would be true-- is, "this degree will give you a career that you can pathat off." turns out not to be the case. >> reporter: in the meantime, nancy says the loan payments are weighing her down. >> it governs everything i do, every decision iake.

it... it... it all revolves around making sure that i have takhat money tothat payment every single month. >> reporter: nancy has consolidated and has gotten slightly lower interest rates on some of the loans, but she expects she'll need to work part-time after she retires. and she's also considering moving to montana, where the cost of living is cheaper. >> my life isn't going to be the way that i'd hoped that it would be. >> sreenivasan: since our segment aired, there have been efforts to relieve some of the challenges of growing sdent loan debt. currently, there are multiple categories of repayment programh undefederal family education loan program. the trump administration is propngosing to create a income-driven repayment plan. and anstudent orrowers who are in bankruptcy might see some changes in the future. the eddepartment oation announced earlier this year that it is evaluating whether studeni loan debt is ee for discharge during bankruptcy.e any guida changes by the department of education to bankruptcy law would have to be aespproved by con

>> this is "pbs newshour ekend," saturday. >> storycorps has been recording and sharing real experiences from people who have extraordinary stories to tell. in this animated short, nos rueda tells gh school teacher, alex fernandez, about his childhood gring up poor in chicago and about his entrepreneurial efforts to help s family make ends meet. >> my mother, she would actually make under $8,000 a year, and if $e reached 000, she would be happy that she made that much. so i would literally go outside my hour, put all my products there, and sell them. i didn't makmuch. the little money i made, i gave it to my mom. first time i remember she was cooking. i came up to her, and i told o r, mom, i know you don't have money,re's $15 i made. she turned off the stove, she turned around. she stded crying and hugged me. from that time on i just

concentr for my family.money >> how did you make that money? >> i started helpg on a construction site. this was in fifth grade. it was bad on my bones. i have bad shoulders and bad knees from all this stuff i was carrying. >> when you were younger, didn't did you realize, this isn't normal? this isn't what other people go through? >> i always kn i was poor. i remember one time in particular, my shoes were all scraped up, so i got paint and painem white. so kid fell and tripped in front of my shoes. he noticed it. he laughed. that's when it hit me really hard. i'm actually poorer than i thought. >> how is you first semester of college going? >> it's been great. i just think about being my first one to go to college. in my family, there are over 50 of us. that's my motivation. >> i'm really proud of you that you've ce this far. i want you to come back in ten years, dressed really sharp.e >> nice ss. >> nice shoe, and have a pair of

shoes you haven't painted, and i want you to get everything u ever wanted. >> sreenivasan: we leave you with a performance by opera star renée fleming at today's funeral service for senator john mccain. >> ♪ oh, danny boy, the pipess the pie callingen >> sasan: fleming said she >> pbs newshour weekend is made

possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the cheryl and philip milstein fami. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t. vagelos. the j.p.b. foundation. rosali p. walter. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcastin and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. be more.

llrrator: hidden in the hi of northern california, a few miles south of san francisco, lies woodside--ons of the wealthiest t inhe united states. it is home to a host of celebrities, including a western lowland gorilla named koko... [koko growling] whose life challenges what it is that makes humans unue. over 40 years ago, penny patt set out to discover if humans and gorillas could ever communicate. woman: everyone wh they're a child has that dr. doolittle moment where they think, you know, if only we could talk to animals. and here was a chance. ator: what began as a ph.d. to teach sign language to koko