The New Republic

Sometime soon, maybe this week,* the Senate Finance Committee is expected to vote on the health care reform bill it spent the last two weeks debating. Inside and outside the committee, people following this process more closely than I am say the bill is likely to pass. But it's not yet a sure thing. READ MORE >>

Maurice Bowra: A Life By Leslie Mitchell (Oxford University Press, 385 pp., $50) READ MORE >>

Arthur Miller By Christopher Bigsby (Harvard University Press, 739 pp., $35) I. READ MORE >>

At the height of the financial panic last fall Goldman Sachs became a bank holding company, which enabled it to borrow directly from the Federal Reserve. It also became subject to supervision by the Federal Reserve Board (with the NY Fed on point)--hence the brouhaha over Steven Friedman’s shareholdings. READ MORE >>

Despite the ugly headline numbers, there were at least a couple of rays of hope in other details of this morning's jobs report. Here is Ian Shepherdson from High Frequency Economics: ...the government component fell a hefty 53,000, so private payrolls were down 210,000, not statistically different from August’s -182,000 but better than previous months. READ MORE >>

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WASHINGTON--The strangest aspect of the debate over a public option for health coverage is that the centrists who oppose it should actually love it. It doesn't involve a government takeover of the health care system. The idea is that only consumers who wanted to enroll in a government-run health plan would do so. Anyone who preferred private insurance could get it. READ MORE >>

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Most of the recent talk about overseas health care systems has not been terribly charitable. You'll wait in long lines, you'll die from curable cancer, etc. But during last week's markup hearings at the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Kent Conrad offered a different, more nuanced take: READ MORE >>