Monday Morning Politics; Mental Health Check-Up for Students; Democrats Battle Over Expanding Medicare; Outdoor Dining Forever?

On today's show:

• John Nichols, national-affairs correspondent for The Nation magazine and the author, most recently, of The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party (Verso, 2020), discusses the latest news on the reconciliation bill in Washington.
• WNYC reporter Jessica Gould discusses the city’s rollout of DESSA, a mental and emotional health test, as students settle back into school after pandemic isolation.
• Amid negotiations for the $1 trillion-plus package in Congress, Democrats are now weighing whether to cut their plan to expand Medicare entirely. Julie Rovner, chief Washington correspondent for Kaiser Health News and host of KHN's "What the Health" podcast, discusses the latest news.
• A group of New Yorkers filed a lawsuit to keep New York City's Open Restaurant program from becoming permanent, as the mayor has already announced. Chief among the concerns: noise, lack of street space for parking and biking, and rats. Listeners call in and talk about whether they're for or against outdoor dining as a forever addition to New York City's culinary landscape, and how the program could be improved.