The United States government has a general policy against paying ransom for a hostage. This is not because paying ransoms is an ineffective policy. Most hostage takers would be happy to return the hostage for money, so as a short-term solution, it does work. The problem is, long term, paying ransom just encourages many more [...]

It is good to see Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is vigorously calling for an end to the filibuster. From Ryan Grim at Huffington Post: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has some advice for her Senate counterparts: Try majority rule for a change. Pelosi, in an interview with the Huffington Post, called for an end [...]

Now that the new health care law is passed, Democrats are hoping to focus on jobs and the economy. Members of Congress and progressive organizations have begun talking more about the Local Jobs For America Act. It is a good bill that should actually help to create and save jobs while temporarily helping to ease [...]

After a full year of debate and dozens of excuses, the Democratic leadership now stands naked in their opposition to the public option. President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid all claimed they that wanted one. They are the three most powerful people in Washington and have huge margins in [...]

No, Olympia Snowe didn’t come up with the idea for triggers. Why are people who write online so challenged in a Google world?

For almost a year, President Obama has spent countless hours trying to woo Olympia Snowe to support heath care reform. He has been willing to bend over backwards to give in to almost every one of her demands. It is very unfortunate that Snowe decided to use her new-found power for evil instead of good. [...]

There has been multiple unsourced reports that at least some Senate Democrats are considering a possible early Medicare buy in for older Americans. The numbers I have seen indicate that the idea would be to allow people over 55 or 60 to buy into Medicare. It is unlikely, but possible, that this Medicare buy in [...]

The White House/Olympia Snowe/Joe Lieberman/ConservaDem apologists are starting to rally around this new “alternative” to the public option. This “alternative” is nothing at all even like a public option. It is an OPM run exchanges for current, private, non-profit insurance companies. I suspect we will soon see apologists claiming this idea would resemble the all-payer [...]

Senators Snowe, Lincoln, and Landrieu are teaming up on an amendment that would effectively gut state regulation of insurance coverage. The first actual votes on amendments to health care reform in the Senate took place today (with more interesting ones to follow). The fact that Snowe and Collins voted with Democrats indicates their votes maybe [...]

Earlier today the Senate voted on the very first amendment to their health care reform legislation. It was an amendment offered by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) dealing with cost-sharing for women’s preventive care. It should have been a relatively uncontroversial amendment. It passed with a near-party-line vote 61-39. Ben Nelson and Russ Feingold were the [...]