The four stage plan to pass Obamacare has been publicly confirmed and is ready to be implemented:

1. Senate Finance Committee (headed by Sen. Max Baucus) passes a conceptual framework of Obamacare out of committee. This is a less-radical version of Obamacare is likely pass out of committee this week since the CBO released a favorable score yesterday.
   Status: incomplete.

2. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid must merge the Senate Finance Committee bill with another (more liberal) bill from the Senate Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions (HELP) Committee.
   Status: in progress.
   
   1. The actual final text will be determined by Reid himself.
   2. Reid can draft and insert text into the bill not approved by either committee.
   3. This process will take place with no senate hearing or public conference committee.
   4. No one will be allowed to read the bill before the Senate debate except senators chosen by Reid and the Obama Administration.
3. Sen. Reid will move to proceed to HR1586 (the house bill passed in March which taxes bonuses received by certain TARP recipients) in order to get around the Constitutional requirement that tax bills originate in the house. Reid’s final version of the healthcare bill will be inserted into HR1586 and passed.
   Status: confirmed.

4. The house will then take up Obamacare and could pass it without amendment (sending the bill directly to the President without a House-Senate conference committee and another round of votes in the House and Senate–and a longer period of public scrutiny of what the proposed law actually says).
   Status: implementation in progress.

Successful execution of this strategy is possible but not without difficulties:

1. It will be difficult for Sen. Reid to keep all 60 democratic Senators happy as he merges the two committee bills. These bills diverge on some of the most sticky issues, including the public option.
2. Sen. Reid has never attempted to merge committee bills before and the process is intensely complex, which leads me to believe that it could take longer than they expect.
3. The House may not pass the bill without amendment, which would force a House-Senate conference committee to resolve the differences and thus open up a period for public scrutiny of the bill.
4. Any delays will reduce the chance of final passage.