Pass. The. Damn. Bill.

Jonathan Bernstein explains the logic of the House passing the Senate health care bill before trying to tweak it through reconciliation:

I want to reemphasize how important it is to realize how much it changes the game once the (Senate) bill is signed into law.  All of a sudden, the Senate Democrats are stuck with a law they supported, complete with Nelson's deal and all the rest of it.

And then — here comes the House with a new bill — not a bill to set up a new health care system, but a patch on a system that's already the law of the land.  A bill that does lots and lots of popular things (taxes on the rich, get rid of lifetime caps, repeal the Nelson deal), and few if any unpopular things.  Republicans can filibuster it all they want.  They'll be the ones protecting the Nelson deal, the excise tax, lifetime caps and the other things that the patch will change.  True, they may do that anyway; they certainly would complain about the procedure.  But that should be a fight that even moderate Senate Democrats would be glad to take on.  They wouldn't be defending the (old) bill they already passed; they would be fixing it!