While preparations for the healthcare reform summit next week apparently continue, Senate Dems tell Roll Call [sub. req.] that that the summit itself doesn't rule out using reconciliation to pass the bill.
Given the unified GOP opposition to their health care effort, Senate Democrats argued just before departing for the Presidents Day recess that Obama’s summit is no reason to shelve reconciliation as a potential strategy. The tactic would allow Democrats pass certain aspects of health care reform with just 51 votes.
"I think it should be constantly pursued," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said Thursday when asked whether Democrats should take a break from drafting a reconciliation bill until after Obama’s summit.
"I think the Republicans are pretty committed to the notion that obstructing everything that President Obama would like to accomplish is very key to their base and their political success," Whitehouse added. "I don’t see them departing from that strategy."
That's a pretty safe assumption from Whitehouse. The Republican commitment to obstruction is demonstrated in this article by Lisa Murkowski who says, again, that the only way this will work is to start from scratch. Republicans seem to have settled on the "blank piece of paper" approach, despite their earlier demands for a plan to be put online 72 hours before the summit. Since they've been asked to come up with a plan as well, it would seem that they'd prefer not to have to do any homework.