On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Supreme Court set to address Biden's student loan forgiveness plan

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this week on President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan. Plus, USA TODAY White House Correspondent Rebecca Morin looks at refugees under the Biden administration, USA TODAY and other newspapers drop the Dilbert comic after racist comments by its creator, USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub talks about how chatbots could upend medicine, and USA TODAY Money & Personal Finance Reporter Medora Lee explains how an end to the pandemic boost to SNAP benefits will affect millions of Americans.

Live updates: Follow along as Supreme Court hears arguments on Biden's student loan forgiveness plan

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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Monday, the 27th of February 2023. Today, the ramifications of the Supreme Court's upcoming decision on President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan. Plus, a closer look at refugees under Biden, and what chatbots might mean for the future of medicine.

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The Supreme Court will begin picking through President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan this week with several hours of oral arguments set to begin tomorrow. And the court's decision, expected later this year, will represent a broader decision about presidential power. It could hurt Biden's ability to pursue other policies like abortion and immigration, and that could be a problem for a president likely seeking reelection with a gridlocked Congress.

In addition to addressing presidential power, the court's decision could also address whether COVID-19 is still a national emergency, since it was that emergency that let the Department of Education execute its loan forgiveness program. You can follow along with all the latest this week on USATODAY.com.

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President Joe Biden has pledged to fix a broken refugee program in the US, but two years later he's not even close to his goal. I spoke with USA TODAY White House Correspondent Rebecca Morin to find out more. Rebecca, welcome to 5 Things.

Rebecca Morin:

Great, thank you for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

What did you find in your analysis about refugee admissions under the Biden administration?

Rebecca Morin:

Right now, the Biden administration is trying to build up resources and take more refugees. According to our analysis, the United States only admitted 20% of the number that they have as their ceiling, which is 125,000.

With that, there's been a couple of humanitarian crises that the United States has helped out with. Afghan refugees who were coming after the United States pulled out of Afghanistan, Ukrainian refugees after Russia invaded. And so the US right now is being saddled with these different humanitarian crises. All those people, who are supposed to be part of this goal, they're they're waiting in line, and this line is getting very long because of just lack of resources.

Taylor Wilson:

In general, how does the Biden White House compare with past administrations when it comes to refugee admissions?

Rebecca Morin:

The Trump administration had the least amount of refugees admitted into the US. Trump also made the goal historically low. In fiscal year 2020, it was 18,000. And then in fiscal year 2021, before President Biden came in and revised it, it was 15,000. And the last full year of the Obama administration it was 85,000 refugees that they were trying to get in, and President Obama was just shy of that. Maybe the only other time we saw lower refugee intake was right after 9/11.

In the '90s it was hundreds of thousands. In the '80s there was up to 200,000 refugees coming in to the US, being admitted in.

Taylor Wilson:

Rebecca, what does the Biden White House say about some of these numbers? Especially considering that Biden himself campaigned on pledges to change some of the Trump era policies when it comes to refugees?

Rebecca Morin:

The administration has been very clear that these goals that they're setting, they're not going to meet immediately. Even when they announce fiscal year 2023, which is also 125,000, that it's not going to be something that happens now.

I talked to a State department official who basically said, "Yes, refugee admissions are a lagging indicator of our progress." It's going to take more time to feel the impact. Right now they're saying they're interviewing more refugees, so they're trying to get up there.

Taylor Wilson:

What do advocates say needs to change specifically under Biden, when it comes to refugees?

Rebecca Morin:

Some of the advocates I talked to, one of the big concerns, the long wait times. The time for refugees to go through this process, it could be a year, it could be two years. It's a pretty long process. They have to be referred by a different agency to the US, and so that takes time. And that's one of the biggest complaints that some of these advocates have.

The United States has a very rigorous background check, and some advocates want to see maybe a more streamlined process. They just don't have the infrastructure in place to try and really nail down everything that they need to do. They need to help everyone, and right now they don't really have enough people to do so.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Rebecca Morin, USA TODAY White House Correspondent. Thanks so much.

Rebecca Morin:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

A number of newspapers, including USA TODAY, are dropping the widely syndicated comic strip Dilbert. That's after its creator described people who are Black as part of a hate group that white people should get away from. Scott Adams is under fire for comments he made on his YouTube channel, where he also said he would no longer help Black Americans. And he said, "Based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people."

The USA TODAY Network, including USA TODAY and other local papers owned by Gannett, announced Friday that it would stop publishing Dilbert due to the discriminatory comments by its creator. Other publications, including the New York Times and Washington Post, announced the same.

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Chatbots driven by artificial intelligence could upend the future of medicine. One of them, ChatGPT, could help patients and doctors alike, but it's not without its skeptics. USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub explains. Karen, welcome back to the show.

Karen Weintraub:

Thanks so much for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So what is ChatGPT and how does it work?

Karen Weintraub:

Yeah. It's an interactive, large language model. So you can type in a question and it will give you a pretty convincing answer. May not be right, but it will be convincing. It's used right now for anything. Some people are using it, and shouldn't be, to write their term papers. Other people are using it to ask questions like you would in a search.

Taylor Wilson:

What potential could this application bring for both patients and doctors?

Karen Weintraub:

For patients, conceivably, if the information is right, it could be helpful. Let's say you went to the doctor and they said that you had some ailment. You didn't understand what the doctor said. You might be able to type in what is X, and it will give you an explanation for that that probably is pretty accurate. Where it's going to be potentially questionable, a diagnosis for instance. You enter fatigue, which is a really common thing, a lot of people are fatigued. There could be 100 or 1,000 probably different reasons for fatigue. It might give you six options. Maybe those are right, maybe those are wrong. The more specific you can be, the better, more likely it will be to be accurate, but it's hard to tell at this point.

So the use for patients is one thing, and pretty soon all of us will have access. There's currently free access to ChatGPT. A million people signed up in the first two days that it was available. The concern really is coming also from if doctors were to use it. In some cases it might be beneficial, where a doctor could get maybe more ideas for a diagnosis that they might not have thought about themselves. But also, it's impossible to tell the source of the information right now on these technologies. We use research trials to say this drug is good for this type of person, and there's no way to figure out using ChatGPT where that information came from, whether it was a study or just those words were associated and that's why it came up.

Taylor Wilson:

And so what else are skeptics saying about ChatGPT when it comes to medicine?

Karen Weintraub:

The problem with it is that it's just language. It associates words. So if you entered something like "diabetes treatment," it might say metformin, which is a common diabetes treatment. That doesn't necessarily mean metformin is the right treatment for you if you have diabetes, but it appears commonly on the internet, and so that's why it shows up.

So it's not a thinking being, it's just sort of telling you what the language model says is the most common thing. And so that could be problematic. If it told you that maybe you had some terrible type of cancer, you would be very upset by that and it might not be right.

Taylor Wilson:

Is there any legal framework for how doctors and medical professionals are allowed to use this technology?

Karen Weintraub:

Right now there is no legal framework, and there's some consideration in Congress about that. Some of the experts I talked to said they think there should be guardrails around the use of ChatGPT and similar technologies for medical care. There should always be a human in the process. You shouldn't just be relying on a diagnosis from a digital algorithm.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, Karen Weintraub, you're always opening our eyes about interesting stories from the world of health. Thanks so much.

Karen Weintraub:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

A pandemic era boost to SNAP benefits is set to expire at the end of this month. So what's that mean for millions of Americans? I spoke with USA TODAY Money and Personal Finance Reporter Medora Lee to find out. Medora, welcome back to 5 Things.

Medora Lee:

Hi, thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

First off, what are SNAP benefits?

Medora Lee:

SNAP benefits are Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formally called food stamps, to help low-income families afford nutritious, healthy foods.

Taylor Wilson:

Medora, who will be affected by these SNAP expirations?

Medora Lee:

Anyone who receives these SNAP benefits will be affected. And the USDA says that there are about 42 million Americans who receive these benefits, so that's a lot of people.

Taylor Wilson:

How much will SNAP recipients actually lose each month when these expire?

Medora Lee:

On average, there have been some studies and they say that people will be losing about $90 a month, but some people can lose upwards of $250 a month. It depends on various things. SNAP benefits are calculated based on income, number of people in your household, and certain expenses you have to pay.

Even if you think it's only going to be $90 a month, that is going to feel particularly difficult for some people, I think, because of inflation. So you're basically seeing a reduction in the number of dollars you can use to spend on food, and we all know the price of the carton of eggs. So this could be a big surprise. And a lot of food banks have been preparing for this because they expect a big rush of people are going to start coming to the food banks, starting March.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Medora Lee covers money and personal finance for USA TODAY. Thanks, Medora.

Medora Lee:

Thank you. Bye.

Taylor Wilson:

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us every day of the week right here, wherever we get your audio. I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden's student loan plan hits SCOTUS, Dilbert dropped: 5 Things podcast