Wow.. that was a really half-hearted request.

I don't get the US system as I'm not American... Why wont he just tell all the Republicans to go fuck themselves and not to come in to work for the next 3 or so years as they are not doing their job anyways and just use reconciliation and push everything through without them. Or can't the president just issue an executive order and push the public option through?

Anyone care to explain?

As someone pointed out in another thread, the Dems are taking as much money from big pharma as the Republicans.

Its not the Republicans stopping Healthcare. The Democrats have all the numbers they need. They just don't have the BALLS.

@LarsaruS, without getting too into the weeds, what's happening is that in the Senate you need a 3/5ths majority (60 votes) to pass a motion to end debate and bring a bill to a vote. A filibuster is when people vote against ending debate to prevent legislation from coming to a vote that would otherwise pass.

Reconciliation is a special procedure for introducing budget-oriented bills, and has a built in 20-hour cap on debate, after which the bill automatically proceeds to a vote.

The reason why you can't do everything that way is because of something called the Byrd rule, which limits reconciliation only to things that directly affect the budget -- for example, reconciliation can and has been used to pass tax cuts, or expand existing entitlements, but it can't be for regulatory changes, like individual mandates, a ban on denying people for preexisting conditions, etc.

Of course, there's also an oft discussed end run around that -- the Senate parliamentarian is who judges whether a bill is fit for reconciliation or not, and the majority has the power to fire and replace the parliamentarian...

Basically, long story short, nothing really holds Democrats back except political fallout. At this point, with all the fake outrages being trumped up by the other side, I doubt many would even notice if Democrats did something so mild and defensible as restoring majority rule to the Senate.

@NetRunner, Thanks for clarifying.