How can some "pared down" insurance regulation bill pass?

[BzaDem]

Obama mentioned yesterday that maybe we should just pass the non-controversial stuff, such as banning denial of coverage based upon pre-existing conditions.

Many of you know that it is basically impossible to do this without a mandate (or the resulting premium-accelerating death spiral would make today's premium increases look like a great deal).

But let's ignore this for a minute, and assume that they can find some way to make it work.

ANY bill that touches ANY regulations cannot go through reconciliation. It would need 60 votes.

Republicans in the Senate will ALL vote against such a bill. It has nothing to do with the idea (surely some would agree with the policy). The point is, they clearly want Obama to fail in a spectacular way on this issue, so they can take over both houses. The easiest way to do this is to deny Obama any legislative victory. All 40 (soon to be 41) have held together for almost every key vote. The only reasonable Republican is Snowe. But Snowe has made it clear that she is no longer willing to vote for any healthcare bill unless it has broad bipartisan support.

So that's it, right? What am I missing? How is it even possible anymore to pass any bill that touches any regulation (aside from swallowing the whole Senate bill, which is still possible)?

[FBaggins]

1. The filibuster isn't a magic bullet

They can't just filibuster everything. I know it seems that way at times, but they can't. It isn't hurting them right now, because a sufficient majority of voters hasn't expressed anger at their tactics. Pick a few of the non-controversial measures and run them up on their own and republicans will have a far harder time selling their opposition.

Then the issue starts to work for us rather than against us. Get some momentum in the right direction and other options may open up.

[AlinPA]

2. They can filibuster everything. It is working. The party of "No" is making progress by saying "No".

There is strong sentiment (look at MA)for stopping everything.

[FBaggins]

4. Wrong. It's only "working" because

there are enough people who oppose the legislation that they aren't suffering for it.

Imagine anti-war democrats filibustering one of the war votes while the war was popular.

There is strong sentiment (look at MA)for stopping everything

That's because the implied choice is "This" or "stop everything". Give them an option of "fix some of the things that everyone agrees are broken, but don't over-reach into 'socialized medicine' or 'government takeover of x% of the economy" and the answer would be differnt.

I'm not saying that it would make the democratic base happy, but it would move the debate down the field and start to repair some of the electoral damage that's making November look so dangerous.

[Selatius]

3. Harry Reid could try to actually make the Republicans sustain a bona fide filibuster.

Registering intent to filibuster should not be an excuse to abandon any legislation. If they want to stop a bill, challenge them. Make them come to the floor of the Senate and read until they can read no more. If time is money, other business that the Senate will need to address won't be addressed during the filibuster, and that will cost somebody a lot of money. Sooner or later, the costs of filibustering will outweigh the benefits.