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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...

This is how the 2007 amnesty bill died, you may recall. It wasn’t Republicans who killed it, it was Republicans plus big-labor Democrats plus a few pro-amnesty liberal Dems who thought the bill didn’t go far enough. Ultimately, the 60-vote needle was simply too narrow to be threaded. And now here we are again. From Kos’s Twitter feed: Insurance companies win. Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate.Remember, the overwhelming nutroots CW to this point has been that something must be passed. What, precisely, gets passed is important but ultimately secondary to the task of passing something...

Politico: “The Senate version is not worth passing,” former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told POLITICO, referring to plans to strip the latest compromise from the bill, a Medicare buy-in. “I think in this particular iteration, this is the end of the road for reform.”

Former Democratic leader Howard Dean dealt a blow to Senate Democrats today, when Greg Sargent at The Plum Line reported that Mr. Dean called for the Senate health care bill to be killed. The interview was conducted on Vermont Public Radio with host Bob Kinzel.:(bolding is mine) (Dean) "This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate. And, honestly, the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill and go back to the House and start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler...

Politico: “The Senate version is not worth passing,” former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told POLITICO, referring to plans to strip the latest compromise from the bill, a Medicare buy-in. “I think in this particular iteration, this is the end of the road for reform.” Is this for real folks? Has Deam turned from the dark side into the light or are they up to something else? Rest assured, no and yes! Dean's comments are about four minutes into this clip:

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In a blow to the bill grinding through the Senate, Howard Dean bluntly called for the bill to be killed in a pre-recorded interview set to air later this afternoon, denouncing it as “the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate,” the reporter who conducted the interview tells me. Dean said the removal of the Medicare buy-in made the bill not worth supporting, and urged Dem leaders to start over with the process of reconciliation in the interview, which is set to air at 5:50 PM today on Vermont Public Radio, political reporter Bob Kinzel confirms to...

But the coup de grâce may happen very soon and may be coming from the left, not the right. Howard Dean will be dropping this bombshell today. In a blow to the bill grinding through the Senate, Howard Dean bluntly called for the bill to be killed in a pre-recorded interview set to air later this afternoon, denouncing it as “the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate,” the reporter who conducted the interview tells me. Dean said the removal of the Medicare buy-in made the bill not worth supporting, and urged Dem leaders to start over...

The only thing that can save us from final passage now is the insane bitterness of “principled liberals” at seeing their dream of true socialized medicine smashed. Help us, Dean-o, you’re our only hope! The gauntlet from Dean — whose voice on health care is well respsected among liberals — will energize those on the left who are mobilizing against the bill, and make it tougher for liberals to embrace the emerging proposal. In an excerpt Kinzel gave me, Dean says: “This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate. Honestly the best thing to...

Howard Dean had a rare Lucid Moment during an interview on the Liberal Air America Network's Bill Press Show on Tuesday. He Said that Obamacare was a lousy bill that wouldn't help reduce the cost of health care. The only good thing about it is the public option which will put America on the road to a single payer system. This is a harmful bill to the nation without a public option, because it’s going to take trillions of dollars, billions, well, trillions over several decades from our kids. The Republicans are right about the rhetoric of the bill. But...

Here is video of NBC's Savannah Guthrie saying today that a senior White House official is calling Howard Dean "irrelevant" in his views on Health Care because he is calling for liberal Democrats to "kill the bill" because it does not have a "Public Option." They also are apparently characterizing Dean as "having a tantrum." Howard Dean is the former Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. . . . . (VIDEO)

A major threat is developing to Barack Obama's dream of universal health care...and surprisingly, it comes from the left. After acceding to all of independent Joe Lieberman's demands, including nixing the public option and the early Medicare buy-in, progressives are in an uproar. They have already lost a lot of faith in this President on other issues, most importantly the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But they thought they had a true believer in the Oval Office. If Obama is a true believer, he surely isn't fighting for his beliefs.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- On a day when Democrats emerged triumphantly from a meeting with President Barack Obama appearing to have won the vote of Joe Lieberman for their pro-abortion health care bill, they may not be ready to celebrate yet. The Lieberman vote appeared to allow Democrats and Obama to secure 59 votes. The only holdout left appeared to be pro-life Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska who says he won't vote for the bill because it funds abortions. Political observers need to hang on to their hats because pro-abortion Sen. Rolland Burris of Illinois, ironically the lawmakers appointed to...

WASHINGTON – Independent Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman says he expects to support the Democrats' health care legislation as long as any government-run insurance plan stays out of the bill. Lieberman has been a question mark on the health care legislation for months. To win him over, Senate leaders said late Monday they were backing away from a Medicare expansion Lieberman opposed. They already had dropped a full-blown government insurance program. Lieberman told reporters Tuesday that if the Medicare expansion and government insurance plan are gone, "I'm going to be in a position where I can say what I've wanted to...

According to all reports Sen. Harry Reid has caved to Lieberman and will now cut out pretty much everything important to liberals in ObamaCare to get him on board and get this POS passed. Reporting from Washington - Senate Democratic leaders, scrambling for the 60 votes they need to pass the healthcare overhaul bill, moved Monday to strike a controversial proposal for expanding Medicare and proceed without a new government insurance program, the so-called public option. So now Reid needs to get to 60 votes to pull the public option crap out of the bill just to get it passed....

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman said Tuesday he is prepared to back a comprehensive health care reform...

WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats last night dropped a key Medicare expansion plan from the proposed health-care bill in a major last-minute concession to save the legislation from going under. The plan would have allowed people as young as 55 to enroll in Medicare. The decision to scrap the idea -- which would have considerably expanded health-care coverage, a key promise made by Democrats in last year's elections -- came as President Obama put heavy pressure on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats to reach a compromise that they could still call "health-care reform."

More than 80 percent of Democrats say they believe Sen. Joe Lieberman should be stripped of his chairmanship in the Senate if he ends up supporting a Republican filibuster of health care reform. According to the Huffington Post, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America ordered a study a few days ago, in which they polled over 800 voters. The main question in the poll was whether Lieberman - an Independent who usually caucuses with the Democrats - should lose his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. 81 percent of Democrats responded that they...

A liberal Web site is trying to enlist celebrities to persuade a top breast cancer research group to dump Sen. Joe Lieberman's wife as its "global ambassador," saying Hadassah Lieberman's health care lobbying work and her husband's opposition to the so-called public option make her unfit for the role.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Joe Lieberman was for a Medicare expansion before he was against it.Democrats circulated video Monday from a Connecticut newspaper's interview in September showing Lieberman voicing support for a so-called Medicare buy-in allowing uninsured people as young as 55 to purchase coverage.The Connecticut independent, whose vote is critical to the health care reform bill's prospects, had threatened Sunday to join Republicans in opposing health legislation permitting a buy-in.Lieberman's spokesman Marshall Wittmann said Lieberman's comments were made before the Senate health care bill, which includes health insurance subsidies, was finalized. Wittmann said Lieberman believes the subsidies make a Medicare...