About First Branch

Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 1: All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Congress is the first branch of the United States government. This website is a serendipity engine to make insightful ideas mentioned in Congress hearings easy to find.

The idea came to me talking about healthcare price transparency with a friend. He mentioned that there had been several hearings on "the Hill" about the initiative, with economists and industry leaders testifying about its impact and potential improvements. I found three of them (1, 2, 3) and I now know there's many more. And I was really inspired by the quality of the testimonies of the speakers and the ideas that I discovered. For example, I learned how a union health plan saved $100M resulting in the largest salary increase in decades, which gave me hope for healthcare price transparency. And now you can see this highlight on this website. There is a lot of powerful ideas to be learned from the witnesses of committee hearings, carefully selected for their qualifications, and speaking at the top of their game to help great causes.

If you're curious about the technical details, check out my engineering post.