Republicans find loophole in reconciliation process

This should be interesting:

As it turns out, Senate Democrats may not be able to force healthcare legislation through the chamber on a simple majority vote.

Republicans say they have found a loophole in the budget reconciliation process that could allow them to offer an indefinite number of amendments.

Though it has never been done, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) says he’s prepared to test the Senate’s stamina to block the Democrats from using the process to expedite changes to the healthcare bill.
Experts on Senate procedural rules, from both parties, note that such a filibuster is possible. While reconciliation rules limit debate to 20 hours, senators lack similiarconstraints on amendments and could conceivably continue offering them until 60 members agree to cut the process off.

Another option for Democrats would be to seek a ruling by the parliamentarian that Republicans are simply filing amendments to stall the process. But such a ruling could taint the final healthcare vote and backfire for Democrats in November.

Or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) could use a tactic similar to the so-called nuclear option to quash the GOP tactics.

What this means for healthcare reform is essentially that Republicans may be able to transform even the reconciliation process into a filibuster-like scenario, stalling indefinitely (and possibly changing entirely in the process) the Senate bill.  Whether this will actually be the case is harder to tell, since it has never been done before.  Certainly Harry Reid’s people are working furiously to find loopholes to counteract this loophole.  We’ll have a veritable war of the loopholes.