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 me. ... Dean had previously endorsed the Medicare buy-in compromise without a public option, saying that the key question should be whether the bill contains enough “real reform” to be worthy of progressives’ support. Dean has apparently concluded that the “real reform” has been removed at Lieberman’s behest — which won’t make it easier for liberals to swallow the emerging compromise.

It looks like when everything else was stripped out, Medicare buy-in was one of the last substantial reflections of real reform left in the bill. Without that key provision, Gov. Dean doesn't think it's worth pursuing the rest of it.

I'm with those who have identified a number of key benefits to the bill.

I do have to confess, though, that the mandates, coupled with lack of premium caps, does make me shudder a bit. I understand that the bill as a whole has the potential to both expand access to care and improve the amount of care that the average policy-holder is permitted to receive.

At the same time, this combination looks like a potential political loser to Dems.

If premiums rise continue to rise, voters are not going to understand what is going on. They were told that government was going to reform health care. Then, why are their expenses still rising? This will be difficult for Dems to explain in 2010 and 2012.

I've also been concerned that we won't be given a second chance at health reform for years to come. In my view, the White House and progressive Democrats should have pushed all the way to the wall this time around. Who knows when we'll get a chance to do this again?

But this works both ways ... if we don't pass something now ... will we get a chance to even start incremental reform any other time soon?

UPDATED:

You might find transcript here, care of commenter CitizenOfEarth.

And from Keith in comments, Howard Dean will also be on Countdown tonight.