If Clinton did the budget without one vote from the GOP, Obama

[jasi2006]

can do likewise with healthcare reform. Use reconciliation and punish the insurance industry until they won't cover anyone, making it possible for a universal healthcare system by the government.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

1. That *did* in fact happened. In 1993, Clinton didn't get one GOP vote for the economic stimulus

The same scenario is playing out today with Obama. Reconciliation will work, but in order to do reconciliation, the provisions in a bill must be directly related to the budget. People are yelling reconciliation, but my understanding is that reconciliation is a lot harder to do than we all think. You would risk stripping out good things in the bill. What needs to happen is what Harkin is attempting to do: change the Senate rules to strip the filibuster. The Dems have the 51 votes to do that.

<snip>

With the news that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) plans to filibuster the current health care bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) options are looking increasingly limited. But one Democratic senator may introduce legislation that would make health care reform a lot easier.

Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa told reporters this weekend that he might reintroduce legislation to end the filibuster, something he first proposed in 1994. The Hawk Eye reports:

"I think, if anything, this health care debate is showing the dangers of unlimited filibuster," Harkin said Thursday during a conference call with reporters. "I think there's a reason for slowing things down ... and getting the public aware of what's happening and maybe even to change public sentiment, but not to just absolutely stop something."

</snip>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/14/tom-harkin-to-introduce-l_n_391188.html

[WI_DEM]

2. Clinton tried to get his health care plan thru by reconciliation but Sen. Byrd blocked it.

[timeforpeace]

3. Reconciliation is for budgets, not other stuff. This won't fly.

[FiveGoodMen]

4. Probably

But it's pretty clear by now that most of the Democrats don't really want to do anything like that.

[BlueIdaho]

5. Kill the fillibuster

No way a select handful of jumped-up, self-important, corrupt grand-standers should control health care access for millions of hard working people.