The Max Baucus Society for Creative Procrastination, aka the Senate Finance Committee, finally moves this morning on its final votes on the health insurance reform bill. Three months later and five steps back from where everybody else who's touched the bill ended up.

Important! Serious!

When we last left our heroes, they were working with a committee divided 13-10 in favor of Democrats, with nine certain "no" votes from Republicans, and two question marks for Senators Wyden (D-OR) and Rockefeller (D-WV), who are unhappy enough with the committee product to let it be known in the press that they're unhappy. Among Republicans, of course, only Olympia Snowe (R-ME) is even remotely entertaining the idea of voting in favor of the bill.

The Hill reminds us this morning of what's happening behind the scenes, and what's likely to come of it:

If more than one of those three senators joins the panel’s Republicans and votes against the bill, healthcare reform would suffer a tough blow on Tuesday and might not recover. It’s likely Baucus will have the votes. Committee chairmen generally don’t schedule a vote they won’t win, and at least two of the three senators are likely to make a leap Tuesday in the hope the bill will improve as it moves forward. The fact that critics of the Baucus bill such as Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) are already strategizing for the floor debate is a strong indication that Baucus will have the support he needs on Tuesday.

That's the basic reality. Chairmen, like floor leaders, generally don't schedule a vote they won't win. Or at least don't know the outcome of ahead of time. And yes, Senators are already strategizing for the floor debate.

But that strategizing could, and in fact must, go ahead no matter what the outcome of the committee vote. In fact, the outcome matters very little, since whatever is produced in the so-called "merging" process will come to the floor under Rule XIV. In that sense, whether the Finance committee reports a bill out or not makes no difference, except for perception's sake. And frankly, I'm not so sure the perception's such a bad one. Given that the process can move ahead regardless of the outcome of the vote, now's as good a time as any to signal disapproval both of the bill's direction, and the ridiculous process that brought us here.

A failed vote does not in fact delay this process, which by all reports is already well underway. But it could severely undercut Baucus' claim to a leadership role in the subsequent process (not to mention his designs on clean energy and climate change legislation), which I think would be a capital idea.