The Republicans Lied: Said the Senate Parliamentarian Insisted Health Reform Needed Obama Signature.

The news media took the word of the Republicans on this one, and still haven't caught on to these guys by fact checking everything they tell us.

Huffington Post: On Thursday, news broke that the Senate parliamentarian told Republicans that the House of Representatives would have to pass the Senate health care bill -- and the president would have to sign it into law -- before either chamber could pass fixes through reconciliation. The story, sourced solely to Republican aides, seemed to be a significant setback for Democrats.

Now it seems that the parliamentarian's words were not so assertive. On Friday morning Congressional Quarterly reported that the Senate parliamentarian "later reportedly clarified his position to Senate aides, saying that the reconciliation bill could be written in a way that would not require Obama to sign the Senate bill into law before the reconciliation bill is voted on."

Surprise!

A Democratic aide ... told the Huffington Post that it was their office's understanding that "the GOP misinterpreted his opinion on health care reform" -- though the aide would not elaborate.

An unintentional "misinterpretation? Yeah, that's the ticket.

Here's more info:

For example, the option does exist that Vice President Biden, as president of the Senate, could rule that a reconciliation fix can pass through Congress without the health care bill it is designed to change being signed into law. The more common solution, as reiterated on Friday by a Democratic Hill aide, is that the party would attach a reconciliation fix bill to the base health care legislation on the condition that the latter is signed right before the former.