With the passage of health care reform and the SAFRA student aid package in the House of Representatives on Sunday night, the two initiatives move to the Senate for what could be final approval.

The Washington Post has an article out this morning about where the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) stands, and it’s got mostly good news for supporters of the measure. A spokesman for Senator Ben Nelson (D-FL), a SAFRA skeptic, is quoted as saying that “it looks like” student loan reform is “in the health-care and education legislation to stay.” The Post itself says that “Democratic support for the bill appears to be solidifying in the Senate, even among senators who have expressed concerns about the lending overhaul.”

Debate in the Senate on health care and SAFRA, which are being voted on under special rules as part of a “reconciliation” budget package, began yesterday. Senate Democrats are hoping to bring the bill to a final vote by the end of the week, though if any changes are made in the Senate, those changes would be kicked back to the House for that body’s approval.

Thursday Morning Update | So … yep. The bill is going back to the House.

Late last night, Senate Republicans identified two glitches in the House HCR/SAFRA bill, and won a ruling from the parliamentarian that those glitches will have to be fixed before the bill becomes a law. What that means is that when the Senate passes its version of the bill, it will make those changes, and that the House will then have to take up the bill again to amend it to match.

On its own, this development is unlikely to mean much. Neither of the changes the Senate will be making are of any great significance, and there’s no reason to believe that the House won’t just pass them by the same margins it passed the original bill.

One piece of the equation does shift slightly, though, as the Republicans now have a new argument to use in pushing for bigger changes to the bill. Since the reforms are going back to the House anyway, they’re saying, why not make some substantive improvements? But the Senate rejected twenty-nine Republican amendments yesterday, and there’s no indication in this morning’s reporting that the Democrats are likely to rise to the bait.

The Senate plans to vote on the corrected bill early this afternoon.

Second Update | Congress-geek journal The Hill has a rundown of last night’s votes — four of the Senate’s fifty-nine Dems (Bayh, Lincoln, Webb, and Ben Nelson) voted for at least one of the Republicans’ 29 amendments last night, and three of the chamber’s Republicans voted against at least one. More amendments will be voted on this morning, but the GOP would need to win ten Democratic votes while holding all of their own to prevail on any of them.

Seems pretty clear that’s not going to happen.

Third Update | The Senate approved the revised bill with no further amendments this afternoon, by a vote of 56-43. The House is expected to accept the Senate’s fixes this evening.