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With a key vote in the U.S. Senate scheduled for tomorrow night on national health care reform, Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman is one of the key Senators to watch.

The independent Lieberman is part of the Democratic Party caucus that needs every vote to win passage.

As his entrance with Maine Senator Susan Collins into his sub-committee hearing on the Fort Hood Shootings showed on Thursday, Joe Lieberman is a media magnet in Washington.

Now he walks nearly alone among his colleagues in the Democratic caucus, squarely in the middle of the seminal issue of the first year of the Obama Presidency - health care - because his is the vote that could cause it to crash.

We met to talk about it at a small room off the senate floor called the Senator’s hideaway.

“Nothing can change my vote and I’d say that’s both good and bad, which is to say that there’s a lot in what Senator Reid has put forth that I have good, positive first reactions to because I’m for health care reform, but, unfortunately the bad part is that the bill still adds on some new government responsibilities that I don’t think we can afford and I’m afraid will end up costing the tax payers a lot of money, like the so called public option, so that part, I’m still against,” Lieberman said.

The Majority Leader in the Senate, Senator Harry Reid, has said he is confident of achieving the necessary votes.

:Harry Reid knows that he has 60 votes, I believe, to move to open the debate on the health care bill and I’m going to vote to open the debate because I want to debate it and I want us to pass something but there’s more than me who won’t vote to end a filibuster on this bill, by more than me I mean, more than me in the Senate Democratic Caucus, I’m not the only one who will not, at this point, vote to end debate on this bill,” Lieberman said.

Lieberman had just come from a luncheon caucus with Reid devoted entirely to discussion of the new version of the health care bill.

“When Senator Reid says he’s confident he’ll have 60 votes, I think he knows and has pretty much said to some of us that he’ll have to change the bill as he presented it,” Lieberman said.

Mark Davis asked: If you do end up being the vote that holds all this up, causes this to crash, is it possible you lose your chairmanship?

“I don’t know and I’m not thinking that way,” Lieberman responded. “I have a confidence, Mark, that in the end I’m not going to be the only person refusing to let this bill out of the Senate if it still has a government run insurance company. Again, I’m not talking about Republicans I’m talking about members of the Democratic Caucus.”

Mark Davis then asked Lieberman if he enjoyed bucking the Democratic leadership.

“No, I don’t enjoy it, matter of fact, I hope and literally pray that this can be worked out so that we can have a good strong health care/health insurance reform bill without a public option that I can vote for enthusiastically and I will,” Lieberman said.

Mark Davis: What about 2012, are you done with the Democratic Party in Connecticut? The Quinnipiac University Poll, I think most people said you were closer to being a Republican, most people said they thought you ought to run as an Independent.

“Well, I’m keeping all my options open about how I run in 2012. Until something otherwise is said I assume, and I hope every will, that I am running for re-election in 2012,” Lieberman said.

That’s about as close to saying he’s planning to run again in 2012 as anyone has heard so far…but as to a party? Apparently that’s to be determined.