This summer, President Obama signed into law the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—an idea that started out as “Unsafe at Any Rate,” Elizabeth Warren’s essay in the Summer 2007 issue of Democracy. It’s a rare thing for an idea to go from the pages of a small-circulation journal into law of the land in three years. We believe it is testimony not only to Democracy’s quality and intellectual rigor, but to the fact that ideas still matter.

The issue in your hands provides further evidence. In “Health-Care Reform, 2015,” Yale’s Jacob S. Hacker, the father of the public option, looks ahead to five years from now, one year into full implementation of the law, and explains what will be working, what won’t be, and how progressives can win the next battles.

There’s more: Isabel Sawhill and Greg Anrig debate how progressives should tackle the deficit and strengthen Social Security; Henry Farrell proposes how the EU can heal itself; and Roger Berkowitz offers a meditation on judgment and justice. And there’s the usual excellent assortment of book reviews, including Martin Kettle on Christopher Hitchens, Michelle Goldberg on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Ray Suarez on immigration