NPR Programs: All Things Considered

The House of Representatives debated Saturday over the long-awaited bill. Republicans appeared universal in their opposition to the Democratic plan. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi scrambled to collect the 218 votes necessary for passage by luring conservative Democrats with a possible compromise on abortion.

American history is filled with powerful men who have have honed their competitive strategies around the card table. In Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker, author James McManus details how the game's logic is reflected in our history of battles and business.

For two decades, Washington state has been trying out the "basic health plan," and a version of it is included in the Senate Finance Committee's bill. The idea is to let the state negotiate directly with insurance companies to come up with affordable insurance plans. How well has Washington's system worked?

NPR's Wade Goodwyn tells Guy Raz that at the vigil, mourners seemed like they'd been through this kind of grief before. He says the investigation into Thursday's mass shooting at the Army post is continuing, but Fort Hood has to "get back to business" to prepare for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

News analyst James Fallows of The Atlantic magazine gives his take on the Fort Hood shooting, the health care overhaul debate in the House of Representatives and the state of the economy.

Warren Buffett purchased the Burlington Northern railway this week, paying $26 billion for the remaining 77 percent of the company. University of Maryland economics professor Curt Grimm talks about the kind of a gamble Buffett is taking, while author Jean Strouse compares Buffett with historic railroad tycoons.

At the tournament's final table this weekend, first-timer Darvin Moon had the most chips and stands to win $8.5 million. Moon, who owns a logging operation in Maryland, has never been to Las Vegas or played poker online before entering the tournament.

Paper Bird, an indie-pop bluegrass group out of Boulder, Colo., talk about their new release A Sky Underground, which mixes banjo, trombone, and a host of other instruments to create a vintage sound that wouldn't be out of place coming from an antique radio.

Thirteen people were killed Thursday in Fort Hood, Texas, when a gunman opened fire. Among the dead were 29-year-old Sgt. Amy Krueger, who enlisted soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and Aaron Nemelka, a 19-year-old from West Jordan, Utah.

After a mass shooting, people who knew the gunman find themselves wondering what warning signs they might have missed. So it is in the case of Maj. Nidal Hasan, the man authorities say opened fire on his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood.

Many politicians have said that increasing preventive care will save money and help pay for health care overhaul. But the Congressional Budget Office says it won't count preventive services as reducing health care costs. Commentator Douglas Kamerow, a family physician and preventive medicine specialist, says that debating whether prevention saves money is asking the wrong question.

If you walk down the cosmetics aisle of any big store, you might mistake the perfume collection for the guest list to a Hollywood party. But star-studded scents account for only about 10 percent of fragrance sales; their value is the publicity.

The global economy is slowly recovering after the worst financial crisis in decades, but government efforts to stimulate growth, including the Fed's move to drive interest rates down to zero, may be creating another problem. Prices for assets — gold, stocks and real estate in Asia — are soaring, leading to warnings that a new bubble could be forming.

The shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, has raised questions about the experience of Muslims who serve in the military. Rafael LanTigua, a lieutenant in the Army National Guard and a Muslim chaplain candidate, says Muslims have served in the armed forces since the Revolutionary War.

In Fort Hood, Texas, investigators are collecting information about Thursday's deadly attack at a soldier processing center. Thirteen people were killed, 12 of them soldiers, and 30 were wounded when a gunman, identified as Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, opened fire in the facility.