That's the message according to what a reporter told Greg Sargent. Dean is actually not advocating passing nothing, but is pushing for salvaging the better parts of the bill through reconciliation.
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 me.
The gauntlet from Dean — whose voice on health care is well respected 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 do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill."
Kinzel added that Dean essentially said that if Democratic leaders cave into Joe Lieberman right now they’ll be left with a bill that’s not worth supporting.
A much simpler bill retaining the critical assistance portions of the bill, the Medicaid expansion and subsidies are the morally critical things to pass at this point. The insurance reforms matter, but are still not a silver bullet. The insurance companies can still impose annual limits. There's nothing in that will actually make insurance companies hold down premium costs.
Passing just the assistance parts of the bill wouldn't be reform, either, but it also wouldn't allow the White House and Congress to say they'd finished reform and close the door on it.
Update: More discussion in bink's diary.