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House Democrats on Wednesday will renew their effort to enact Medicare-for-all, arguing the year-long pandemic was a “wake-up call” to replace the nation’s fragmented health insurance system — and betting they can pressure President Biden to embrace a government-run program that he famously rejected. “Everybody is seeing the chaos and the destruction that the pandemic has caused,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and one of the bill’s lead authors. “And it’s really making people look and [ask], could we have had something different had we had a Medicare-for-all system in place?” (Diamond, 3/16)

As President Joe Biden embarks on an ambitious plan to sell his massive coronavirus relief package to the public, conservatives are starting to ask: Did we botch this? The overwhelming sentiment within the Republican Party is that voters will turn on the $1.9 trillion bill over time. But that wait-and-see approach has baffled some GOP luminaries and Trump World figures who expected Republicans to seize their first opportunity to cast newly-in-charge Democrats as out of control. Instead, they fear the party did little to dent Biden’s major victory — a victory that could embolden the administration in forthcoming legislative fights and even the lead up to the midterm elections. (Orr, Cadelago, McGraw and Korecki, 3/17)

House lawmakers are restructuring their bipartisan task forces dedicated to combating the drug epidemic and expect the chamber to consider behavioral health legislation this year, members told CQ Roll Call. The push is spearheaded by four lawmakers in an effort to broaden the scope of legislative efforts beyond opioids to include all forms of addiction and mental health. (Raman, 3/16)

For years, lawmakers bemoaned crumbling roads and bridges while wastewater and drinking water infrastructure crumbled largely outside the spotlight. Faced with outdated infrastructure and mounting federal requirements, water utilities struggled, often forced to pass the costs on to ratepayers ill-equipped to pay rapidly growing bills. And while the federal government offered aid to low-income Americans for heating assistance and food, there was no such federal aid for water bills, though utilities were reluctant to turn off the spigot. (Wehrman, 3/17)

The House will vote to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act on Thursday, after standoffs over LGBTQ issues and gun rights prevented an update of the law for years. Authorization for the law, which provides funding for federal prosecution of domestic violence as well as state and local grant programs, lapsed in 2019. The legislation has support from a handful of Republicans heading into Thursday’s debate, but it has also attracted GOP opposition over provisions that lower the threshold to bar someone from buying a gun based on certain misdemeanors. (Macagnone and Tully-McManus, 3/16)