Howard Dean: "A lot of important things in this bill that will make it worth passing."

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MADDOW: Can you call it health insurance reform, not health care reform?

DEAN: Certainly not health insurance reform because a lot of stuff that they say is going to be in it, like preexisting conditions stuff. It’s going to very helpful for children and young people but not for older people for very technical reasons. Basically, in the bill, there’s not a lot of insurance reform. They meant to put some in but somehow lost its way in the Senate Finance Committee.

MADDOW: Well, what do you think is the most important thing this bill will accomplish?

DEAN: A lot of important things in this bill that will make it worth passing. The first is, it’s great for small businesses. If you have fewer than 30 employees, you don’t have to pay health insurance at all anymore. We ought to break the link between employment and health insurance. And that begins that process. Secondly, it is good for the deficit. One figure you didn’t mention, which is even more important, is over the following 10 years, after the first 10, it reduces the deficit by over $1 trillion.

MADDOW: Yes.

DEAN: So, from financial point of view, it makes a lot of sense. Medicaid is expanded so indigent working people who can’t get any kind of insurance get help now. Children’s preexisting conditions on the day the president signs the bill are gone. A friend of mine just had his 9- year-old daughter come down with diabetes. He would lose his insurance policy under the present—for the whole family under the present circumstances. That will be gone if this bill passes. So even though as a person who’s kind of represents the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party and I think we could have done a lot more, this is worth passing.

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So, when you add it all up, I think this bill should be supported. I think it needs to be supported, and I think it’s going to pass.

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DEAN:...The big difference here is in the last four weeks, President Obama is back. He started with a Republican Senate. He has been leading this country for the last four weeks vigorously, standing up for what he believes in. I think it took tremendous amount of guts on his part to go back and try this again.

A lot of people in his White House staff said don’t and he did it. And he gets credit for that what people want more than anything else, to see a really strong president. In the last four weeks, President Obama has been a really strong president. If they win this, there’s lot of reasons that we’re going to win, I think.

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