Greg Sargent picks this up:

The GOP Senate leadership has privately settled on a strategy to derail health reform if Dems try to pass the Senate bill with a fix through reconciliation, aides say: Unleash an endless stream of amendments designed to stall for time and to force Dems to take untenable votes.

The aide described the planned GOP strategy as a “free for all of amendments,” vowing Dems would face “a mountain of amendments so politically toxic they’ll make the first health debate look like a post office naming.”

The initial read that I get from congressional Democrats is that it would be entirely possible for the Republicans to offer “an endless stream of amendments” — which, practically speaking, means they could stretch out the process for weeks if not months. While debate on reconciliation is limited to 20 hours, the Senate would nonetheless have to vote on as many amendments as were ruled germane. Once again, here’s a description of how the process works. And Jeff Davis recently wrote this: