If Republicans try to stall the Reconciliation process in the Senate through endless amendments

It will be damn similar to the old fashioned type of filibuster when Senators had to read from cook books and sports magazines to keep legislation from coming up for a vote. Democrats should not fear that, they should welcome it. It will totally expose the Republican Party for using blatantly obstructionist tactics that no one could confuse with legitimate legislative diligence. Republicans have been trying to stall this session of congress into being unproductive all along, so that they can run against Democrats not getting much done. If they tried to jam up reconciliation on health care with a non stop stream of petty amendments that must each be voted on they will be flushed out into the open, and probably sooner than later the general public will turn on them over it.

Republicans would not be able to rationally claim that Democrats are abusing their powers by using reconciliation to pass health care reform because that is exactly what Republicans used to push through tax cuts for the rich under Bush, and Democrats never resorted to that kind of obstructionism when Republicans did so. I predict that if Republicans try to jam up reconciliation, and if Democrats don't cave under that type of gamesmanship, eventually Democrats will have the 60 votes needed for cloture on debate for the normal method of getting health care reform passed. Either Lieberman or one or more Republicans will step forward and say that they would support cloture for a normal motion "reluctantly", in order to end the total paralysis in Washington. They can then vote against the bill but it won't matter because then we will only need 51 votes and amendments could be limited.

Republicans would take a real beating in the meantime, just like they did under Gingrich when they tried to shut down government before they had to cave in. We can win this and hurt the Republican Party as a bonus.

republican obstructionism is obvious, the democratic party republican enablers are less obvious.

Anyone who forces government to a halt through obvious delaying tactics will be in the spot light and the hot seat. We are probably at 57 to 59 votes already for cloture. Those who stand in the way will stand out like a sore thumb that gets more sore every day that gamesmanship continues. Democratic leadership can keep repeating; "All we are asking for is an up or down vote".

the media won't report it. They never ever report anything determential to the republicans. People out here did not even know that Coburn had blocked the veterans bill. And when they found out thru word of mouth, even people who were not veterans were mad as hell. None of the cable or network news programs reported it.

It would soon become all that they did talk about. Congress would come to a halt and Reid could state that the Senate will not move on to other matters untill we get an up or down vote on health care reform, period. It would become a battle of wills and that is political drama.

filibuster to make them do it, saying it would be "great tv"!

The Democratic position would be the sane one in that type of show down. Democrats could agree to suspend discussion on health care temporarily in order to take up another important matter in return for a Republican agreement to put a limit on the amount of new amendments they will offer to the health care bill, and on the time allotted for debate on them. Again, Democrats would simply be demanding an up or down vote after allowing for more than ample debate and amendments to be considered.

hopefully, though, it would all be done in time for a final bill to be on Obama's desk by his SOTU speech.