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Keith Olbermann is ready to go to jail over it. Markos Moulitsas is prepared to see the health-care bill die over it. Howard Dean is assaulting the White House over it. It’s the individual mandate, the source of rare cross-ideological agreement in the health-care debate. The provision to force everyone to buy health insurance long labored in obscurity, overshadowed by the more glamorous and controversial public option. No more. The death of the public option left the individual mandate exposed. Disappointed liberals now confront in the cold light of day a provision that will, by force of law, make people...

Former Democratic National Committee chairman and medical doctor Howard Dean believes that Democrats’ efforts to pass a Health Care Bill has deteriorated to such a point that desperate Democrats are willing to pass anything just for the sake of passing something. The dread just do something disease. And according to Dean Democrats don’t really care if what they pass is detrimental to the Country. (see 4:48min video) Please allow me to translate one point of Dean’s statement to Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos:

Keith Olbermann is ready to go to jail over it. Markos Moulitas is pre pared to see the health-care bill die over it. Howard Dean is assaulting the White House over it. It's the individual mandate, the source of rare cross-ideological agreement in the health-care debate. The provision to force everyone to buy health insurance long labored in obscurity, overshadowed by the more glamorous and controversial public option. No more. The public option's death left the individual mandate exposed. Disappointed Liberals now confront in the cold light of day a provision that will, by force of law, make people hand...

For those of you who have never seen the picture of Howard Dean holding Alaska's very own left leaning moose, "Brian the Moose", here is a nice photo of Dr. Public-Option-Only holding a toy representation of "Brian the Moose". And for those of you who don't know who "Brian the Moose" is, he is the Alaska Democratic Party fringe's mascot that can be seen in the most unusual places.....

In a stunning reversal of fortune for President Barack Obama, top progressives are attacking the health-reform plan moving through the Senate as “hollow,” “unsupportable” and a sellout to corporate interests. Republicans, after plotting for months to sink the signature legislation of Obama’s first year, suddenly think that Democrats might wind up doing it for them. Most dangerously for White House chances of assembling 60 Senate votes, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean launched a third day of attacks on the emerging bill, arguing in a Washington Post op-ed that it meets none of his benchmarks for “real reform.” “[A]s it stands,...

The battle between former Democratic Party Chief Howard Dean got ugly today, as Dean said he would support Obama for re-election but not vigorously. The Political equivalent of a declaration of war. He was basically saying that he would sit on his hands in 2012 and has one of the leaders of the Progressive movement, that statement is a hint for his supporters to do the same. Dean's battle with the Obama administration became public a few days ago when Dean, who was ousted from his party chairmanship by Obama after the successful 2008 campaign, suggested that so much as...

If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current health-care bill. Any measure that expands private insurers' monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform. Real reform would insert competition into insurance markets, force insurers to cut unnecessary administrative expenses and spend health-care dollars caring for people. Real reform would significantly lower costs, improve the delivery of health care and give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage. The current Senate bill accomplishes none of these.

Pour some more butter on the popcorn . . . Yesterday, Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs took shots at Howard Dean and his opposition to ObamaCare, suggesting the good doctor didn't know what he was talking about. It was payback time this morning, as Dean announced that he would support Pres. Obama's re-election bid "not vigorously." View video here.

President Obama is about to accomplish what many previous Democratic presidents have tried to do, and failed. At least that's what the White House spin would be, and it will largely be echoed throughout the Democratic Party. No, they will say, the health care reform bill won't have a public option, but it will extend coverage to millions of people and provide a framework to build on for the future. You would expect the liberals who put him in office to be thrilled. They're not. Here are a couple of highlights from the liberal blogosphere: Taylor Marsh (Huffington Post) "Pres....

Here is video of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and former DNC Chairman Howard Dean getting into a heated argument on MSNBC's "Hardball." (Video)Landrieu defended Joe Lieberman's concerns over the "health care reform," she said that Lieberman "just has a little different view than many in the party, but actually I understand his view..there are governors like Gov. Dean who wants to eliminate the insurance companies in America." Howard Dean replied "that's obviously not true" and asked Landrieu "Mary I'd like to know why you deny my people the choice to sign up for an alternative, you are forcing us into...

WASHINGTON -The liberals' longtime dream of a government-run health care system for all died Wednesday in the Senate, but Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont vowed it will return when the realization dawns that private insurance companies "are no longer needed." Sanders, an independent and socialist, said his approach is the only one "which eliminates the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste, administrative costs, bureaucracy and profiteering that is engendered by the private insurance companies." His remarks drew handshakes and even a hug or two from Democrats who had filed into the Senate to hear him. Sanders acknowledged the proposal...

The scuttling of the public option from the Senate health care bill has infuriated organized labor and left their leaders in a bind about how to proceed. Top labor officials of several unions are meeting with their executives today, and some plan to meet on Thursday, to devise their strategies, now that the Senate has dropped the public option, a government-run health insurance plan to compete with private insurers. It was the central provision for which labor has been fighting. A sense of urgency was building, as a deadline bears down on the Senate. In order to pass a bill...

"If we don't pass it, here's the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,"

Granting Tom Maguire’s point that history begins and ends in The One’s mind with his own presidency, I think Obama’s right this time. In a provocative argument designed to rescue his foundering health care plan, President Barack Obama will warn Senate Democrats in a White House meeting Tuesday that this is the “last chance” to pass comprehensive reform…White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer told POLITICO: “If President Obama doesn’t pass health reform, it’s hard to imagine another president ever taking on this Herculean task. For those whose life’s work is reforming health care, this may be the last train leaving...

President Obama pushed back against critics, including the former head of the Democratic Party, who have said that the health care bill in the Senate is fatally flawed and should be scrapped altogether. In an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson, the president said he laid out for Congress specific things he wanted to see in the health care legislation -- including providing insurance for millions of uninsured and not driving up the deficit -- and that the current bill still has those benefits. "Now, if you can tell me that those things are not worth it, then you and...

WASHINGTON – The liberals' longtime dream of a government-run health care system for all died Wednesday in the Senate, but Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont vowed it will return when the realization dawns that private insurance companies "are no longer needed." Sanders, an independent and socialist, said his approach is the only one "which eliminates the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste, administrative costs, bureaucracy and profiteering that is engendered by the private insurance companies." His remarks drew handshakes and even a hug or two from Democrats who had filed into the Senate to hear him. Sanders acknowledged the...

If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current health-care bill. Any measure that expands private insurers' monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform. Real reform would insert competition into insurance markets, force insurers to cut unnecessary administrative expenses and spend health-care dollars caring for people. Real reform would significantly lower costs, improve the delivery of health care and give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage. The current Senate bill accomplishes none of these.

Republicans have forced the Senate clerk to read aloud a 767-page amendment to healthcare reform legislation, paralyzing action on the chamber floor as Democrats approach a Christmas deadline. Senate aides estimated that it could take 8 to 10 hours to read the massive amendment offered by Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) came under strong pressure from conservatives last week to do more to delay progress of the Democratic health bill. Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives called on McConnell to use every parliamentary tactic at his disposal to slow...

Today, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced an amendment to the healthcare bill currently being debated on the Senate Floor. When the motion to introduce the amendment as written was raised, Senator Tom Coburn objected. This forced the entire 767 page amendment to be read on the floor, a process so far estimated to take between 12 and 36 hours. As this process takes place, with the amendment being read by what I suppose is a series of clerks, it seems an ingenious stall tactic to me that Republicans could continue this process in liew of filibustering for as long as they...

The Obama administration's support for an individual insurance mandate without a public option is triggering what appears to be a full-fledged liberal revolt against the Senate's healthcare compromise, and for the first time raises the realistic prospect that reform could die amidst internecine Democratic bickering. An ominous sign resonant of the contentious 2007 standoff over immigration reform: The conservative right and the hardcore left are both beginning to attack the current proposal, terming it a "monstrosity" and lambasting its cost. "Insurance companies win," DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas declared Tuesday. "Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate." If...