My new book "The Overloaded Liberal: Shopping, Investing, Parenting, and Other Daily Dilemmas in an Age of Political Activism" will be published in April -- and if you're in New York City, please come to my book signing at Barnes & Noble, Seventh Ave at 6th St., Park Slope / Brooklyn, April 7, at 7:30 pm.

Everyone's talking about that terrific cover story in "The Atlantic" this month about health care reform. But its analysis of the underpinnings of health insurance versus car insurance is only part of what makes the piece noteworthy. This discussion also proves why we need "dead tree" media (in addition to Websites like Sourceables, of course!): Could you imagine such a long, in-depth analysis on the Web?

The cigarette companies are raising the sticky issue of free speech in arguing that the new federal tobacco law (which lets the FDA more tightly regulate cigarette ads) is unconstitutional. Congress could have avoided that whole mess if it had had the guts to simply outlaw cigarettes as a safety hazard. If I'd had to buy black-market cigarettes on sleazy street corners for $100 a pack when I smoked, I would have quit on the spot.

The "town hall" discussions of health reform that members of Congress have tried to hold during their recess have clearly been sabotaged, making rational discussion impossible. Some of them have turned downright dangerous, as angry constituents showed up with loaded guns! So here's my modest proposal: End the congressional recess now. Not only would that avoid all the heat and anger of the town hall meetings, but then Congress would also have more time to work on climate-change legislation, the budget, and other bills, as well as health reform.

On one piece of health reform, at least, the politicians seem to have hit a good compromise: generic biologic drugs. As my book "Inside the FDA" explains, it's tough to concoct safe copies of biologic drugs like vaccines, which are made from actual natural materials like cells, rather than by manipulating chemical structures to make, say, Lipitor. Yet a patient could save thousands of dollars:a year on generic copies, as we do with Lipitor's generic rival, simvastatin. So Congress has figured out a compromise where generic biologic drugs would more extra FDA testing than chemicals. Sounds good..