Sometime today (?)

House leaders plan separate health vote, rejecting 'deem and pass'
By Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 20, 2010
... Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said Saturday that the House would take three votes Sunday: first, on a resolution that will set the terms of debate; second, on a package of amendments to the Senate bill that have been demanded by House members; and third, on the Senate bill itself.

Sometime today (Sunday, 21 March).

Full disclosure: I'm not a big fan of the Senate bill - I'm one of the 'public-option' socialists.
That said: let's start somewhere.

Assuming House Dems muster 216 votes - which seems not quite guaranteed - then the Senate has to pass the package of amendments.
My understanding is that Senate Dems plan to use 'reconciliation' to manaage this with a simple (51 vote) majority.
A Senate official (parliamentarian?) first has to rule that the amendments fit into the 'reconciliation' envelope.
Then Senate Dems have to muster 51 votes (actually I think 50 would do it, with VP Biden casting tie-breaking vote). 50 Dem votes in the Senate seems plausible.

Only House action is scheduled for today (Sunday).
The Senate side-show will take a while longer - and I've no idea what "a while" might be. End of the week?... end of the month?... before Nov elections?? ... in my lifetime???

I've got a fairly hectic Sunday, so I'll likely not be paying much attention till late afternoon or early evening.

Till then, I'll just keep my fingers crossed.

[pointless aside: why didn't Obama invest himself in this issue until the past couple of weeks???]

[pointless aside #2: at this point, I'm not viewing the House vote as a vote on health-insurance reform so much as a test of party unity. They could be voting on agricultural policy for all the substance matters to me right now. Can House Dem leadership deliver 216 votes on legislation that defines the Dem party and the Dem presidency???]