Dr. Dean was on the "Countdown" show with Keith Olbermann last night and expressed his support for the compromise on health care reform hammered out by the so-called "Gang of 10." He wisely conditioned his support on seeing the details, of course, since all that has been described publicly are the very broad outlines of the deal. But he was very clear in saying that, based on what he knows now, this is a good deal.
And this morning he was on The Early Show on CBS reiterating his support for this deal.
He called it a "positive step forward" that "makes a lot of sense" and described it as "what should have been done in the first place."
He asked and answered the most important question about this compromise (apart from the obvious political advantage, that it makes passage of health care reform more likely):
"Whatever we call it is irrelevant. Is it going to work? Yes, it is."
Dr. Dean also called the deal "real reform."
If it's good enough for Howard Dean, it's certainly good enough for me.