The final bill was thru reconciation, Sawz... All the components of the Senate and House bills had been debated for the last year... The biggest thing in them was strippin' the Medicare deals that were made to bring along a couple of Blue Dog Democrats in the Senate... I doubt very much if the Repubs had any serious problems with doing that...

I'll be the first to admit, however, that without the fillibuster rule the Repubs would have been forced to participate more in thr shaping of the final bill and it would have gotten biparisan support but the Repubs choose early on to not participate and put all their egges into the fiilibuster basket... Too bad for them and too bad for the country as well...

I mean, if the Repubs want more transparency then they are going to have to participate but I think their strategy is to not participate and tyry to make the Dems look like bullies... Not a bad strtaegy for November but a terrible one for the long term interests of the country...

B~