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Democrats made their final arguments to Iowans on Monday night, with Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont offering contrasting views about whose vision would best move the country forward. ... Taking questions from an audience of mostly undecided voters, Mr. Sanders defended his plan for universal health care and made the case that his agenda to fight income inequality was not “pie in the sky,” as Mrs. Clinton has described it on the campaign trail. ... Mrs. Clinton also tried to take back the progressive mantle that Mr. Sanders has latched on to, reminding voters that she was fighting for universal health care decades ago and that she has scars from fights against drug companies and the health insurance industry. (Rappeport, 1/26)

With Iowa kicking off the 2016 election season in one week, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton tried to erase doubts about her judgment raised by rival Bernie Sanders on Monday while digging deep into her years of governing experience. At a CNN town hall meeting, Sanders argued that his own judgment, not Clinton's experience, is the most crucial quality for the next commander-in-chief. (1/26)

Sen. Bernie Sanders uttered a handful of words that are likely to hang over his campaign -- and he probably doesn't mind it at all. "Yes, we will raise taxes," Sanders said during the CNN Democratic forum in Iowa on Monday night. ... Sanders has staked his entire candidacy on his willingness to bluntly declare that he will not only raise taxes on the wealthy, but his universal health-care plan requires increased taxes that would be offset by cost savings by eliminating monthly premiums and annual deductibles. (Phillip, 1/25)

With just a week to go before the critical Iowa Caucuses, Bernie Sanders Monday night acknowledged in the most clear terms yet that his single-payer health care plan would raise taxes. ... Sanders went on to say that a focus on taxes entirely misses the point, because his plan would reduce health insurance premiums by even more than it would raise taxes. (Seitz-Wald, 1/26)

Judging by the force of his answers, [Bernie] Sanders has zeroed in on two issues that could prove to be his downfall in the Democratic primary: gun control and his dismissal of Planned Parenthood as part of the “establishment." ...it was on Planned Parenthood that he made his most impassioned plea, after Democrats have lambasted him for labeling the organization — as well as NARAL and the Human Rights Campaign — as the “establishment” following their endorsements of Clinton. ... It wasn’t nearly enough -- NARAL sent out a press release before the end of the evening describing him as a “an ally, not a champion." (Debenedetti, 1/26)

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders got personal with supporters in Iowa Monday in the final days before the state's lead-off caucuses. Alden, Iowa resident Carrie Aldrich teared up as she told Sanders about the hardships of living with a disability on less than $10,000 a year. Others discussed a spike in the cost of prescription drugs or the problems they face when an insurer doesn't cover their medication. Sanders thanked the group and touted his pledges to expand Social Security and create a single-payer style health care system. (1/25)

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have virtually nothing in common except for outsider status and pie-in-the-sky policy priorities, which they sell with highly charged emotional appeals targeted at voters’ economic and social anxieties. ... Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist, hews more closely to legal realities than Trump, but he still campaigns on an aspirational platform of political longshots. He vows to break up the big banks. He wants to give every student the option of going to college without paying for it. He envisions a health care system in which everyone is covered, including undocumented immigrants. (Viser and Linsky, 1/25)

Donald Trump said tonight he could save Medicare billions of dollars by allowing it to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies -- embracing a position Democrats have championed and Republicans have opposed for years. The Associated Press quotes Trump as telling a crowd in Farmington, N.H., that Medicare, a huge buyer of prescription drugs, could "save $300 billion" a year if it negotiated discounts. (1/25)