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.