How you'll judge Max Baucus's framework depends on how you understand the goal of health-care reform. Insofar as the effort is aimed at filling in the cracks of the current system — making it more affordable, more transparent and less cruel...

One of the questions a lot of people asked amid the hysterics of August was why, if these town halls were astroturfed shout-fests, were members holding them at all? The answer appears to be simple: They largely weren't astroturfed shout-fests. Bu...

This is health-care reform's endgame, or close to it. Next Wednesday, Barack Obama will give a prime-time address before both houses of Congress. But that's not all he's giving Congress. The administration is going to put a plan down on p...

"Look at Canada," says Charles Krauthammer. "Look at Britain. They got hooked; now they ration. So will we." So do we. This is not an arguable proposition. It is not a difference of opinion, or a conversation about semantics. We ...

Joe Lieberman's heterodoxies were, for a time, quite contained. He might have been a Kristol-ite neoconservative on foreign policy, but he remained a Connecticut liberal on domestic and social policy. That was before Ned Lamont's challenge, a...

1) How Wall Street wins on the Hill. 2) How lobbyists complete Congress's homework. 3) Weighing the costs of end-of-life care. 4) Some of the best brackets I've ever seen. 5) Ron Paul's son has entered the Kentucky Senate race. His name, I kid you...

The arcane rules and regulations governing the 51-vote budget reconciliation process made it a tricky path for health-care reform. But they make it perfect for stimulus. After all, what's dearer to the budget than spending money and changing tax...

In response to a legal challenge by the Socialist Party, France's Constitutional Council -- their Supreme Court, as I understand it -- rejected Nicolas Sarkozy's carbon tax. Why? Because it "allowed for too many exemptions. The council, it seems, was...

Tell me a bit about the provisions to expand community health centers that you added into the Senate bill. In most areas of Vermont right now, you can drive to a community health center near you where you’ll get excellent quality primary health...

Matt Yglesias doesn't like it when people compare the legislative process to making sausage. Comparing the operations of the US Congress to those of a sausage-maker is a huge insult to the sausage industry. You may or may not think that the...