Read an Aug. 18, 2009, Religion News Service story about the religious element to the health care debate.

Read an Aug. 9, 2009, New York Times primer on health care reform proposals.

The Washington Post has a page with the latest developments on national health care legislation.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services explains health care reform at its Web site HealthReform.gov.

Read the text of the nationally televised address to Congress on health care that the president delivered on Sept. 9, 2009, which opened a major new front in a tough fight to develop and pass a reform package.

In his Jan. 27, 2010 State of the Union address the president pledged to keep fighting for health care reform, though it remained unclear how he and the Democrats would be able to pass a bill.

View a variety of recent polls about health insurance reform at PollingReport.com.

This story, published on May 14, 2013, in the New York Times, explains how Vermont became the first state to pass a legislative measure allowing physicians to administer lethal drugs to terminally ill patients in May 2013.

Liaquat Ali Khan is a professor of law at the Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kan. A native of Pakistan, he focuses his research on terrorism and conflict in Muslim societies. He has written extensively about Islamic law and in 2008 wrote an article for The American Muslim about Islamic perspectives on the economic meltdown.