I agree single-payer/Medicare-for-all is the logical goal if Republicans dynamite the obstacles. And it may not take a successful repeal-and-go-die vote--they may have already made Americans long for a plan to fix it once and for all, for everybody, GOP STFU forever and ever amen.

In fact, I'd say the Democrats' best strategy is to spend the rest of this Congressional term crafting the legislation to do it, in the open, involving all the real stakeholders. "Crafting the legislation" doesn't mean that Democrats have to somehow get Republican-controlled committees to formally consider the question. It's something that can take place outside of Congress...again, in the open, in stark contrast to McConnell's bill crafted in the fetid darkness of his shell.

The important thing is to have a concrete proposition to present to voters in the spring of 2018: Give us a veto-proof majority, and this is the law we'll enact.

I find that satisfying not just for the way it advances a moral goal, but also because it's something the Democrats have needed for a long time, to slap them out of their corporatist neoliberal stupor. The party would be forced to grow at the same time.