The president will outline the plan to pass the bill, including having the House of Representatives pass the Democratic Senate health care reform legislation as well as a second bill containing various “fixes.”

He will say that if Republicans refuse to allow and up or down vote in the Senate on the fixes to the bill, Democrats will use the reconciliation rules.

He will argue these rules are perfectly appropriate because the procedure is not being used for the whole bill, just for some fixes; because reconciliation rules are traditionally used for deficit reduction and health care reform will reduce the deficit; and because the reconciliation process has been used many times by Republicans for larger legislation such as the tax cuts pushed by President George W. Bush.

Demonstrate why you think it is a good idea to remove restraints on law-makers.

I'm not convinced that removing procedural complexity is the same as removing restraints. On the contrary, one of my primary reasons for supporting straight up-or-down votes in general is to ensure clear lines of accountability. The way it's set up now, the majority and the minority can just blame each other's procedural tactics for their own substantive failures. If you have a straight up-or-down vote with a majority wins rule, it's perfectly clear who voted for what, and the voters can more easily hold their elected officials accountable for those votes. No more of the "they obstructed us!" or "I voted for it before I voted against it!" b.s.

The Democrats have nothing to lose and everything to gain by using reconsiliation.

It's not like they're going to lose the next election because they pass healthcare. They're going to pay the price because the number one priority - jobs (remember the state of the union?) - was never the real number one priority.

THERE HAS been no discussion of single payer. The public option has been ditched. President Obama received no Republican support at his nationally-televised health care forum last week. In response, the Democrats must not concede any more in the final lurch toward health reform. Even then, reform is already so watered down that it is likely to fall apart over the next decade. Democrats would be wise to view this moment not with finality, but as the beginning of the journey toward the sanity of single payer, toward what most of Europe and Canada have.

The health industry lobbyists continue to display a greed that will no doubt boomerang. The day is unavoidable when angry Americans will no longer be duped by fear-mongering about a “government takeover’’ of health care.

What's your over/under on how long until people realize that the government co-opting 1/6th of the entire US economy will be a net loss for jobs?

On a side note, healthcare related, my woman's employer, a spinal surgeon, is now forced to lay off two employees now that medicare has cut it's payouts by 21% creating an enviroment where he is no longer willing to accept medicare as it is a cost liability.

Well, once this is all said and done, perhaps the government will step in with a law that makes it illegal to refuse Medicare coverage.

At which point, watch every physician even close to being able to afford retirement quit working.

Not if we make it illegal for them to retire!

If they use this option, they all need to hang. By the by, the President should be removed from office and charged for dereliction of duty and violating his oath of office. As he has demonstrated ABSOLUTE contempt for our Constitution.

Problem is, 51 seats in the senate is not a congressional mandate. Never has been, never will be. The senate is supposed to represent the entire country, not just whichever of the two big government partys happen to have a simple majority.

Senate rules are in place for exactly that reason.