Many have suggested already that the Senate bill should be ping-ponged through the House and then fixed later through Reconciliation. Others have suggested scrapping the Senate bill and passing more progressive HCR measures through reconciliation.
To the "back to the drawing board"/Reconciliation proponents - what advantage is there to starting from stratch instead of using the Senate bill as a starting point? If something that Progressives want (different taxes/funding, public option, etc.) is passable through Reconciliation or a follow-up bill, couldn't the Senate bill be fixed to implement that same exact thing through Reconciliation?
I'll go through the major objections to the Senate bill:
Tax on "Cadillac" plans:
Changing the tax structure is tailor-made for Reconciliation, which is supposed to be limited to spending/taxation issues after all. This one is easy to fix and will force Republicans into defending the wealthy in order to block middle-class tax relief. Democrats can pivot to focus on jobs and finance reform immediately after passing the Senate HCR bill, and then few months before the November election introduce bills to make the HCR tax structure more progressive. Then it will be fresh in the voters' minds who is protecting the wealthy and powerful and who is protecting the middle class.
Furthermore, having this perceived flaw in the Senate bill will create more focused momentum/incentive to fix it. Once it's back to a blank slate, there would be endless arguments again about how to fund HCR.
Lack of Public Option
I don't think this could be fixed through Reconciliation in any case. It would have to be a separate bill to create a major new government agency/program. So to the degree that the Dems can pass the Public option if starting from scratch, they should be able to add a Public option to the existing HCR Senate Bill.
Mandates to buy Health Insurance
Mandates are absolutely essential to HCR, so this is only really a problem because of the lack of a Public Option. So if anything passing the Senate bill would create additional focus/momentum on making available a public option before the mandates kick in. In the interim, Democrats can also pass increased subsidies through Reconciliation to make sure that this is not seen as a huge new burden on the middle class. It would still be a huge transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the insurance companies, but would not be as onerous as being seen as imposing a burden on the middle class.
Drug-reimportation
This is a regulatory issue that is probably not a candidate for Reconciliation. It's a follow-up bill that would be equivalent to starting from scratch.
Insurance anti-trust exemption
This is a regulatory issue...see above...
...So in summary
The Democrats have a massive amount to lose by not passing a bill now. If after debating for a year they get nothing passed, they will be seen as an ineffective laughingstock. Furthermore the public is sick and tired of the HCR debate, and will be in no mood to "go back to the drawing board". That means no significant HCR gets passed by November, and Dems get punished both by dissappointed Progressives and other Dem and Independent who just see them as bumbling and ineffective.
Conversely, if the Dems pass HCR even in the immediate aftermath of the Brown victory, this may turn off some independents in short term but will be more than counterbalanced by enough Dems that will be screaming - "FINALLY - idiots!" and will on balance immediately turn to a more favorable view of HCR and Congress. Plus, the Dems would have 10 months to: a) explain to the American people what's good in the HCR bill, and b) fix what's not so good.
The Dems really screwed themselves good with this whole HCR debacle, but the best way I see forward is definitely to pass the flawed Senate bill and then keep improving it over time.