Wonkbook: Voters Like Their Single-Payer Health Care

Newsflash: Seniors like their single-payer health-care system. And other voters like the prospect of having the protection of a single-payer health-care system when they get older, too.

That, at least, is the main message out of New York's 26th district, where Democrat Kathy Hochul turned a special election in territory Republicans have held since 1960 into a referendum on the Ryan budget -- and won. The Republican theory, that voters would come to appreciate the specifics of the legislation once they recognized the courageous leadership the GOP had shown in endorsing it, failed. That's bad new for the House GOP, where all but four Republicans voted for the budget, and it puts Senate Republicans in a tough spot, as they're going to be asked to vote on the Ryan budget in the coming days. But the immediate policy question is what it means for the two Republicans sitting in the room with Joe Biden.

The White House's deficit talks didn't begin particularly auspiciously, with Republicans sending two rather than the requested four, members, and Democrats sending negotiators like Max Baucus and Daniel Inouye, who seemed to have little interest in a deal. But they've made more progress than most expected, and both sides now think a deal including more than $1 trillion in cuts is likely.