The horrific mass shoting in Las Vegas raises the question, is it at long-last time to ban or restrict assault weapons?

The easy availability of semi-automatic/assault weapons has been a threat to national security for a long time, and we have seen clamor for gun control swell and fade after mass shootings time and again. But the horrifying toll of this one vicious shooting incident — currently at 59 fatalities and 500+ injuries — brings a new urgency to calls for congressional action.

We had a federal ban on assault weapons, which was enacted in 1994. But it was allowed to expire in 2004. there was a failed effort to pass the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013. Today, only seven U.S. states have assault weapons bans, and Minnesota and Virginia have training and background check requirements for assault weapons purchases. Some cities and counties in Colorado and Illinois have local laws banning sale of assault weapons, as does Washington, D.C.

The Editorial Board of The New York Times presents a graphics display which helps to put the problem in political perspective. Entitled, “477 Days. 521 Mass Shootings. Zero Action From Congress,” the graphic doesn’t provide the horrifiying death and injury toll, which is well into the thousands. But insert the term, “Republican-controlled” before “Congress” and you have a more accurate description of the reason for inaction. Republican leaders of congress have been extremely effective in preventing even modest assault weapons restrictions that might save lives from being enacted.

That’s not to say that all Democrats have supported restrictions on semi-automatic weapons. Some have been cowed by the NRA, and their silence is part of the problem. But it’s equally-accurate to say that all serious initiatives to restrict assault weapons in recent years have come from Democrats. Back in 1993 former Republican Presidents Ford and Reagan joined Jimmy Carter in calling for a ban on  “semi-automatic assault guns.” But today, nearly all Republicans in congress have failed to do anything to protect Americans from the scourge of easilly-available semi-automatic and assault weapons. Democratic Rep. David Cicilline (R.I.) introduced “Assault Weapons Ban of 2015” and was supported by 149 House co-sponsors, but not one of them was a Republican.

Democrats can be confident of public support for restrictions on semi-automatic and assault weapons. A 2016 Quinnipiac University National poll found that 59 percent of voters supported “a ban on the sale of assault weapons.” An even larger majority — 64 percent — agreed that “”It’s possible to make new gun laws without interfering with gun rights.”

There will be heated arguments over the next few weeks about the effectiveness of legislation to restrict assault weapons. But the NRA bromide about a “good guy with a gun” as the best remedy for stopping domestic mass murders has been utterly discredited by the Las Vegas killings. The only thing that is certain is that no legislative remedies will even be given a chance to succeed until Democrats win a working majority of both houses of congress.

The following article by Democratic strategist Robert Creamer, author of Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, is cross-posted from HuffPo:

In all three of these instances, the decisions leading to a war – or almost leading to a war – did not involve a grand design or conscious action. They involved mistakes or near mistakes that were, or could have been catastrophic. And their likelihood of doing so vastly increases if they are made by erratic, impulsive people who lack self-confidence and a sense of history – people like Donald Trump or Kim Jong Un.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of major works of comtemporary political analysis, is cross-posted from his blog, The Optimistic Leftist:

It is not generally appreciated how good the special elections have been for the Democrat this year, probably because people have not concentrated on the swings in these elections relative to Democratic performance in 2016. It is these swings, rather than the absolute outcomes, which tells us the most about how the political climate is shifting. Daniel Donner over at the excellent Daily Kos elections–a treasure trove of useful electoral data–has analyzed these swings and reports the following:

There has been considerable consternation and many pixels spilled about the regions of the country where the Democratic margin in the 2016 presidential election fell sharply compared to 2012, including the entire states of Iowa and Ohio. Was this the beginning of a permanent realignment? Was it a new baseline? Or would Democrats be able to recover?

We now have some answers, illustrated in the chart at the top of this post. There have been 10 special elections in districts where the presidential margin shifted 10 points or more toward Donald Trump compared to the 2012 margin. And in all 10 of those, the margin has shifted back toward Democrats in the special election. What’s more, in eight of the them, it has shifted past the 2012 presidential margin, and Democrats have outright won six of them (those where the dark green dot is to the right of the vertical axis).

With just 10 elections in this category, we have to be a little careful, but we can say one thing with certainty: Democrats are not stuck at 2016’s presidential numbers.

The times they are a-changin’. And, as these data indicate, for the better.

The following article, by Jess O’Connell, CEO of the Democratic National Committee and Jessica Post, Executive Director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, is cross-posted from Time Magazine:

Over the last few months, we’ve seen Democrats united against the attacks on our values. We stopped Republicans’ attempts to take away health care from millions; we’ve pushed back against this administration’s hatred and bigotry; and we’ve kept President Trump from advancing much of his disastrous agenda. But what you may not have noticed is that Democrats have also been notching victories at the ballot box.
There’s no sugarcoating where we found ourselves after November. We didn’t just lose the presidential election; we had been losing elections up and down the ballot for nearly a decade. That’s why we’re changing things. And we’re doing it the right way – from the ground up.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), state legislative leaders and state parties are leading the fight to take back control of state legislatures across the country. With the help of the DLCC, state parties and our progressive partners, state Democrats have won more than 50 percent of state legislative special elections since Trump’s inauguration and have flipped six competitive seats from red to blue – all in districts that went for Trump in 2016.

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The GOP’s Obamacare-repeal obsessives are back. This time they are trying to hustle working families with a classic, though transparent ‘Trojan horse’ scam. From Andrew Prokop’s Vox post, “The bait and switch at the heart of the new Obamacare repeal bill: Graham-Cassidy is being sold as giving states flexibility. But it hugely cuts health care spending.”

Cassidy and Graham like to emphasize that their bill would roll back Obamacare’s spending and regulations and would instead simply send states money in a block grant. States, they say, would be free to figure out how to use that block grant money however they see fit — they’d be able to experiment with their own approaches. Even moderate Republicans are likely tempted by an argument like that.

Here’s the catch: The bill doesn’t just move around Obamacare’s spending. It severely cuts federal spending on health care overall — both for Obamacare and for traditional Medicaid. And since covering people costs money, the result will inevitably be that millions of people will lose coverage…The Graham-Cassidy bill is essentially a Trojan horse for these dramatic cuts on health spending that Republican leaders have been pushing all along.

Prokop continues, noting the three features of the bill that give the game away: 1) The bill dramatically cuts and restructures traditional Medicaid; 2) In turning Obamacare’s spending into a block grant, Cassidy and Graham aren’t just redistributing it — they’re reducing it; and 3) The new block grant ends entirely after 2026, and there is nothing to replace it afterward.

Summarizing the bill, Prokop explains, “So the argument about giving states “flexibility” leaves out a whole lot. Less money would be available to states overall in those newly flexible block grants, and on top of that, traditional Medicaid would be cut — which clearly points toward millions losing coverage overall. And that’s even before the whole system is set to fall off a cliff in 2027.”

There are some formidable obstacles facing Republicans, including the opposition of some skeptical state governors in their party. Then there is the narrowing time window for getting the Graham-Cassidy trojan horse passed. The Republicans only need a senator of two to pass the bill, and once again the outcome may come down to Sen. John McCain, who sounds a little wobbly. The hope is that he won’t cave to party pressures and the pleadings of his closest friend in the Senate, primary sponsor Lindsey Graham.

What is certain is that the coalition that did such a good job of mobilizing against the previous GOP Obamacare repeal bills must turn the heat on again — or risk a health security disaster for millions of Americans.

Philly Trib Washington correspondent Charles D. Ellison cuts to the quest the Democratic Party’s best thinkers should be focused on in his article “Voter turnout still headache for Democrats.” Ellison writes,

Voters who typically support Democratic candidates, in fact, are nearly 60 percent of the “drop-off” voting population, according to the Pew Center, as opposed to less than 40 percent who are Republican supporting voters… On average, Republican voters are 20 percent more likely to participate in a midterm election than Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters.

Such numbers do not bode well for Democrats heading into crucial competitive elections, including high-profile test run cycles this November in places such as Virginia, New Jersey and Philadelphia and major potential comeback Congressional midterms in 2018.

High voter turnout for Democrats will be key, particularly, in 2018 as the party not only seeks to retake lost ground in both the U.S. House and Senate, but also must regain power in numerous state legislatures and Governors mansions. For Democrats, the next two years are key in terms of rebalancing scales in their favor and effectively diminishing the power of the Trump administration and its base.

Making matters more difficult, Ellison notes that Dems have a tough image problem: “Badly enough for Democrats, a summer Washington Post/ABC poll found most Americans believed Democrats “just stand against Trump” as opposed to “stand[ing] for something,” 52 percent to 37 percent. Only 35 percent of registered voters believed the party stands for something.” This despite the fact that Democrats have provided the leadership that secured virtualy all of the reforms that have benefitted Americans over the last half-century.

With repect to the declining voter participation of the nation’s strongest pro-Democratic constituency, African-American voters, Ellison notes,

…Observers are concerned that Democratic Party rank and file are discounting the crucial need to re-energize a weary Black electorate that doesn’t turnout as much as older white voters do during House and Senate midterm cycles. That electorate will also be key in helping Democrats win back gubernatorial seats and state legislatures. Yet, there’s no evidence of a concerted plan to mobilize Black voters in 2017 — despite their needed presence in the Virginia governor’s and General Assembly races — and in 2018.

There are also worries that the Black electorate is fatigued from a constant barrage of controversies and policy attacks, from reversals on affirmative action, the Affordable Care Act, military surplus to police departments and the new Justice Department’s refusal to pursue voting rights cases and police reform…Strategists worry that environment is rapidly eroding any remaining Black electoral faith in the political process, which could lead to massive drop-off voting.

The Pew Center research, in fact, shows Black voters account for nearly 20 percent of all drop off voters in looking at 2012, 2014 and 2016 elections. There are a myriad of reasons for that: from the systemic impact of voter suppression to the emotional “tap out” or lack of enthusiasm which was prevalent among Black millennial voters (a segment that constitutes 35 percent of the Black electorate population).

But it’s not just African-American voters whose participation declines in midterm elections; it’s pretty much all pro-Democratic Demographic groups. What can be done about it? In recent years a number of writers have addressed the challenge of increasing turnout in both midterm and presidential elections in articles in various media, including:

“How can we increase voter participation?” by Liz Sablich at Brookings.

“5 Ways To Fix America’s Dismal Voter Turnout Problem” by Kira Letner at ThinkProgress.

“How to increase voter participation in low-turnout communities: Research brief” by Melissa R. Michaelson at Journalists Resource.

“How to Increase US Voter Turnout” by Nancy Meyer at Daily Kos.

“The Best Ways to Increase Voter Registration, and Voting” by John A. Tures at HuffPo.

“Increasing Voter Turnout for 2018 and Beyond” by Tina Rosenberg at the New York Times.

“This Might Be the Best Idea for Turning Out More Voters in U.S. Elections” by Thomas MacMillan at New York Magazine.

“4 ways to boost the dismal turnout in local elections” by Keith Wagstaff at The Week.

“How Can We Increase Voter Turnout” at FairVote.

“Increasing Voter Turnout: What, If Anything, Can Be Done?” by Kelly Born at Stanford Social Innovation Review.

“7 Ideas From Other Countries That Could Improve U.S. Elections” by Kate Samuelson at Time.

“Simple Ways to Increase Voter Turnout” by Lee Drutman at Pacific Standard.

“Ways to Increase the Youth Vote” by Goethe Behr at uspresidentialelectionnews.com.

“Want to increase voter turnout? Here’s how” by Thad Kousser at The L.A. Times.

There is a lot of repetition in the above articles, and many of these ideas depend on Democrats having  working majorities in both the House and Senate, as well as state legislatures, to secure the noted reforms — which is quite a stretch at this point.

All of these and other ideas will require that Democrats provide better and more diverse candidates. There is some evidence that Democrats are doing better in this regard in this election cycle, as indicated by the swelling number of Democrats already running for office in 2018.

The challenge is made more difficult by Trump’s ability to manipulate the media and distract coverage from popular policy reforms, which remain the strongest advantage of Democrats. New ideas to facilitate meeting this challenge are more than welcome.

Despite the limitation of two choices at a time, “The Best Health Care System in the World: Which One Would You Pick?” by Aaron E. Carroll and Austin Frakt at NYT’s The Upshot provides some insightful analysis by top public health/economic experts.

Paul Krugman offers a succinct, sobering critique of the Graham-Cassidy health care bill: “In reality, Graham-Cassidy is the opposite of moderate. It contains, in exaggerated and almost caricature form, all the elements that made previous Republican proposals so cruel and destructive. It would eliminate the individual mandate, undermine if not effectively eliminate protection for people with pre-existing conditions, and slash funding for subsidies and Medicaid. There are a few additional twists, but they’re all bad — notably, a funding formula that would penalize states that are actually successful in reducing the number of uninsured…Many progressives have already begun taking Obamacare’s achievements for granted, and are moving on from protest against right-wing schemes to dreams of single-payer. Unfortunately, that’s exactly the kind of environment in which swing senators, no longer in the spotlight, might be bribed or bullied into voting for a truly terrible bill.

Syndicated columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. adds this important observation to the criticism of Graham-Cassidy: “The latest repeal bill is an offering from Republican Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (La.) that would tear apart the existing system and replace it with block grants to the states. Block grants — flows of money for broad purposes with few strings attached — are a patented way to evade hard policy choices. All the tough decisions are kicked down to state capitals, usually with too little money to achieve the ends the block grant is supposed to realize…Oh, yes, and the [the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities] report also noted, with italicized emphasis, that as currently written, the block grant “would disappear altogether after 2026.” What happens then? The bottom line, said Jacob Leibenluft, a senior adviser at the center, is that Graham-Cassidy “punts all the problems to governors while giving them insufficient tools and resources to address them.”]report also noted, with italicized emphasis, that as currently written, the block grant “would disappear altogether after 2026.” What happens then? The bottom line, said Jacob Leibenluft, a senior adviser at the center, is that Graham-Cassidy “punts all the problems to governors while giving them insufficient tools and resources to address them.”

At FiveThirtyEight Harry Enten reports that “Trump’s Popularity Has Dipped Most In Red States,” and notes ” In states where Trump won by at least 10 points, his net approval rating is down 18 percentage points, on average, compared to his margin last November. In states that were decided by 10 points or less in November, it’s down only 13 points. And it’s down 8 points in states Clinton carried by at least 10 points…If red state voters who dislike Trump but voted for him in 2016 abandon the Republican Party in 2018, it could lead to some unexpected electoral results. It’s another reason that Democrats, if they want to maximize their chances of winning back the House, should compete in a wide variety of districts.”

William Greider makes a strong argument at The Nation that Democrats need primary challengers to reinvigorate the party’s prospects, particularly with respect to Dems who have gotten too cozy with corporate lobbyists. As Greider suggests, “Rebellion may be required within the Democratic Party. It has to turn away from the bankers and the multinationals and restore the multi-hued party of workers and imaginative reformers. Refreshing the field of battle with new faces and original ideas risks losing the next election or two, but intramural contests can energize skeptical voters and redefine fundamental principles…The rebels within the ranks may be a minority, but as the GOP discovered in previous decades, a purposeful minority can agitate and educate and change party direction in fundamental ways. Party elders might have more campaign money, but Democratic challengers can employ a device that worked wonderfully for right-wing, anti-tax Republicans: Ask primary candidates to take the “pledge,” then target those establishment incumbents who refuse to do so. For Democrats, the pledge would be a promise to fight any measure that cuts taxes for corporate dodgers as well as any measure that refuses to support expansion of Social Security or Medicare. Politicians who try to cheat on their pledge should be targeted and taken down. After incumbents see a few supposedly safe colleagues get wiped, they will get the message.”

From the Economic Policy Institute’s post “How today’s unions help working people“:

“While we lost at the top of the ticket, the untold story of the election was the dramatic increase in Latino participation rates that allowed for a record number of Latinos to be elected to office,” said Cristobal Alex, president of the Latino Victory Project, an outreach group backed by Democratic activists, and the national deputy director of voter outreach and mobilization for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. “There are bright spots…And 2018 represents another opportunity: Latinos make up more than 20 percent of the eligible voters in 10 out of 62 House races deemed competitive by Inside Elections with Nathan Gonzales, according to a Roll Call analysis.” — from Stephanie Akin’s “Record Gains by Latinos Contradict Narrative” at Roll Call.

Despite Trump’s media image as an outlier in the GOP projected by David Brooks, Chris Cillizza and others, Robert Borosage has a reminder at OurFuture.org (cross-posted from The Nation) that Trump’s views, though often more crudely-stated, are nothing new for the Republicans. As Borosage notes, “Trump’s actions and words are particularly noxious, but no one should be misled: Trump’s race-bait politics are an expression of the modern Republican Party, not a deviation from it. The battle for its soul has long since been decided…Trump’s election tally wasn’t an outlier, either. He gained about the same share of the white vote as Romney (58-37 for Trump and 59-39 for Romney) and he was rejected by black and Latino voters by similar margins as well.”

Credit minority leaders Schumer and Pelosi with playing a deft hand in their immigration policy negotiations with Trump. Not that anything he says has much shelf life. But getting Trump to clarify his postions on DACA, the wall and other immigration issues is a good strategy that splinters his hard right base.

“Trump is on a bipartisan tear of late,” write Rachel Bade and Josh Dawsey at Politico. “Elated by what he viewed as glowing press after his debt ceiling deal with Democratic leaders “Chuck and Nancy” last week, Trump wants to replicate that thrill of victory, which he believes Republicans have failed to deliver since his inauguration….In recent weeks, Trump has complained in private that it’s difficult to have any sort of relationship — or even make small talk — with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He’s told staff that he finds Speaker Paul Ryan, whom he’s dubbed a “boy scout,” dry as well, but the two have some rapport…By contrast, Trump can relate to Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, who talk more in non-Washington terms that he understands, according to people familiar with their meetings. Trump wants to keep meeting with them.”

Anne Branigan reports at theroot.com that a new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds that “A strong majority of Republicans agreed to some extent that white people are under attack in this country (63 percent), which isn’t altogether surprising given the racially charged—and just outright racist—rhetoric the GOP has employed through the years. But while the rate of Democrats who agreed that whites are under attack was comparatively low, at 21 percent, that still indicates that a fifth of “progressive” respondents subscribe to one of the so-called alt-right’s core beliefs…Most of the survey’s respondents felt that “all races should be treated equally” (89 percent) and that people of different races should be allowed to live wherever they choose (70 percent).”

So, “How Much Can the Youth Vote Actually Help Democrats?” Elliot Morris addresses the qustion at The Upshot and observes, “Young Americans have been moving left and leaving the G.O.P. in recent years, but a successful Democratic coalition built on the backs of liberal youth is far from a sure thing, especially in the short term…The party’s problem is straightforward: getting them to actually go to the polls…Those aged 18 to 29 vote at far lower rates than older groups, decreasing their electoral power. But there are at least some signs that their participation levels will improve. And if an increasingly left-leaning voting bloc does become more politically active, there are huge potential gains for the Democratic Party…The obvious positive news for Democrats is reflected in the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (C.C.E.S.), a survey of 64,000 adults. Fifty-four percent of American adults younger than 30 identified as Democrat or leaning-Democrat in 2016 — that’s six percentage points higher than among the rest of the public. Young people also call themselves “very liberal” or “liberal” more often than Americans older than 30, by five and seven percentage points.”

According to a new Pew Research analysis of polling data, “The study also finds wide demographic and socio-economic differences between consistent voters, drop-off voters and nonvoters. For instance, 80% of those who voted in all three elections were non-Hispanic whites, compared with 62% of drop-off voters and 63% of nonvoters. A 65% majority of consistent voters were 50 and older; just 45% of drop-off voters and 32% of nonvoters were 50 and older…Eight-in-ten voters who participated in the 2016 and 2012 presidential elections and the 2014 midterm were white, compared with 62% of presidential election voters who did not vote in the midterm.”

At The New York Times Linda Qiu has an update on ‘medicare for all’ polling, and notes “A Quinnipiac poll in August reported that 51 percent of respondents said that replacing the current health care system with a Medicare-for-all model was a good idea. “Medicare for all” generally polls more favorably than “single payer.” In a June poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, 57 percent of respondents supported Medicare for all, while 53 percent favored a single-payer approach…Other polls about single-payer health care found lower levels of support: 44 percent from Morning Consult/Politico, 44 percent from Rasmussen and 33 percent from the Pew Research Center.”..Pollsters at AP/NORC did not ask about a specific model in an August survey, but 60 percent of respondents said it was the federal government’s responsibility to provide health care for everyone.”

David Leonhardts’s New York Times column on “Bernie’s Secret Allies” notes a delicious irony: “The weaker private markets become, the more political momentum government-provided insurance will have. Some Democrats will push for a gradual expansion of Medicaid and Medicare. Others, like Sanders and his growing list of allies, will push for an entirely new system. I don’t expect them to succeed anytime soon, but the debate over health care has moved much further to the left in recent years than I expected to see. And the Republican Party is largely responsible.”

From Paul Waldman’s Plum Line article, “The dumbest criticism of single payer health care“: “There is simply no critique you can make of single payer health care that is more wrong than “It’ll be too expensive.” That is 180 degrees backwards. Single payer is many things, but above all it is cheap. And what we have now is the most expensive system in the world, by a mile…Let’s look at what we’re paying now. In 2016, we spent $3.4 trillion on health care. That spending is projected to rise an average of 5.6 percent per year over the next decade. If you do the math, that means that between 2018 and 2027 we’ll spend $49 trillion on health care in America. That’s the current system…Republicans have seized on the $32 trillion number to scare people into thinking that Democrats want to raise their taxes some insane amount (“When you look at the majority of House Democrats, they support a single-payer, $32 trillion bill backed by Bernie Sanders,” says Sean Spicer). But if we’re going to spend $49 trillion under the current system, and single payer would cost $32 trillion, doesn’t that mean we’d be saving $17 trillion? Congrats on all the money you’d be getting back!”

In his Daily Kos post, “New data finds U.S. Latinas are ‘becoming an economic and social powerhouse,’ Gabe Ortiz writes, “Despite anti-immigrant and anti-Latino slander from the Hater-in-Chief, Latinas are persisting, resisting, and “outpacing the rest of the nation” in economic and social influence, according to new Nielsen data. U.S. Latinas now represent 17 percent of nation’s total woman population, experiencing a nearly 40 percent growth from 2005-2015…77% of US Hispanic female population growth over that ten-year span came not from immigration, but from Hispanic girls born in the U.S…”Latinas are coming into their own, and this newfound confidence will have an undeniable impact on our consumer-driven society,” said Stacie de Armas of Nielsen. “Hispanic women are increasingly the catalysts in an intercultural marketplace. Not only are they the cornerstone of the Latino family, keeping language and traditions alive, but they are also forging a wider path in the mainstream and using technology to serve as brand and culture influencers.”

At The Daily 202, Paige Winfield Cunningham has an informative update on national — and internationsal — health care politics. As Cunningham writes,

…Republicans have focused on repealing the Affordable Care Act and replacing it with bills that would cover far fewer people and are deeply unpopular. Democrats are fixating on single-payer plans (see Sanders, Bernie) that Republicans will surely block.

After much fanfare, Sanders (I-Vt.) rolled out yesterday afternoon his “Medicare for All” proposal, which has gained support from 16 Democrats (many of them would-be 2020 presidential contenders — see Warren, Elizabeth). It’s certainly true that support for a single-payer system has been edging up in recent years among the public and among members of Congress.

Jeff Stein adds at Vox:

The majority of those backing Sanders’s Medicare-for-all bill tend to hail from blue states or are rumored 2020 presidential candidates. Still, as Vox’s Dylan Matthews has written, the endorsements are illustrative of a stunning shift among Democrats to embrace single-payer legislation — which was once circumscribed to the party’s far-left fringe.

In late August, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) became the first Senate Democrat to back Sanders’s bill. She was quickly followed by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), as well as Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Brian Schatz (D-HI).

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), who is up for reelection in 2018, became the first senator from a state won by Donald Trump in the general election to back the bill on Tuesday. (Though Wisconsin is a traditionally blue state that frequently elects Democrats.)

But several Senate Democrats have also said that they will not co-sponsor the legislation, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has not formally stated a position on the bill.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), widely seen as one of the most progressive senators in a red state, said that he would not be co-sponsoring the bill — though he is pushing a health care bill of his own aimed at expanding Medicare by lowering the enrollment age down to 55. Brown is expected to face a difficult reelection race in 2018.

“Right now, I’m focused on building bipartisan support for my bill to allow people to buy into the Medicare program at age 55, which will cut costs and expand choices for Ohioans,” Brown told Vox in an email.

Similarly, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential running mate in 2016, appeared to confirm in an interview that he wouldn’t be co-sponsoring the bill, citing his preference to give consumers options in choosing their health insurance. (Sanders’s single-payer bill would likely eliminate private insurance companies and replace them with a single, government-run insurer.) Kaine supports a government-run public option, and said he wants enrollees to be able to pick between the government plan and a private plan.

Meanwhile, some Senate Democrats haven’t made up their minds yet. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said he needed to scrutinize the text of the (still unreleased) Sanders bill, and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) said much of the same.

MSNBC commentator Steve Kornacki tweets a revealing comparison: 1993: 4 of 56 Dem senators (7%) sponsor single-payer bill. 2017: 17 of 48 Dem-caucusing senators (35%) sponsor single-payer bill. Single-payer reform is gaining traction among Democratic elected officials.

Cunningham outlines the Trump-supported ‘Graham-Cassidy alternative.’ which “would actually rip even more deeply into the ACA than previous GOP-backed measures and is widely viewed as a last-ditch and far-fetched effort to fulfill their repeal-and-replace promise.” Additionally,

The measure would turn the billions of dollars spent on the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, tax credits and subsidies into grants managed by each state, allowing states to define their own rules for health plans that may be sold to residents and outline the help consumers should receive to afford that insurance, my colleagues Amy Goldstein and Dave Weigel report.

Cunningham sketches some of the systemic health care compromises in Europe and Japan:

Great Britain is often cited as the classic example of a single-payer system, where the government not only pays virtually all the bills (albeit funded by a hefty tax) but also runs the hospitals. But other wealthy countries have designed systems that interact heavily with the private market or require patients to kick in their own funds to keep costs lower.

Take France, for example. While on vacation in Paris last week, I had a chance to chat briefly with a senior French Senate staffer about his experience with his country’s health-care system — and was surprised to learn that it’s not quite the government-pays-all system many Americans imagine.

Philippe Bourasse, the Senate’s deputy head of international relations, told me that he carries a supplemental insurance plan to help pay the portion of his medical visits the government won’t cover, and then pays the rest of that share out of pocket. Indeed, around 95 percent of the French buy private coverage — or get government vouchers if their income is low enough — to cover cost-sharing and some uncovered benefits, according to the Commonwealth Fund.

In Japan, all enrollees must pay a 30 percent coinsurance for all medications and services they receive. In the Netherlands, the government contracts with competing private plans — much like how the U.S. Medicare Advantage program works. Successful health-care systems in other countries including Germany, Australia and New Zealand all work in somewhat different ways but still manage to achieve better health outcomes and less per-capita spending than in the United States.

Of course, more government health benefits also require steeper taxes to pay for them. French workers are required to pay 21 percent of their income into the national health system; even so, there’s a near-constant debate over how to put the program in the black. Tax hikes aren’t something Americans swallow willingly. And anyway, the conversation on Capitol Hill has centered on how to cut the government’s health-care spending, not increase it — at least among Republicans who control the power lines.

It might also be good to survey how South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and other nations mix the public and private sectors in their health care systems — and assess how well their systems work.

The political momentum behind single-payer health care reform suggests it will be a central component of many Democratic campaigns in both 2018 and 2020, while Republicans now appear more morally and intellectually-bankrupt on health care reform than ever. Democats may settle on a “public option” compromise or some other public/private sectors mix. But right now, the positive energy is with the single-payer movement — and that helps Democrats and hurts the idea-poor Republicans.

From Ezra Klein’s interview of Hillary Clinton at vox.com: