You made a great that reconciliation has to pass the Senate first before the House takes up the Senate Healthcare bill (which won't expire till Congress dissolves at the end of the year anyway).

In theory, at least

The potential loss of a 60th vote in the Senate for health care reform has many in Washington focusing on the budget reconciliation process, which requires only 51 votes in that chamber. Since a reconciliation bill must contain provisions that have "budgetary impacts," many of the regulatory and consumer protections in the House and Senate health bills would not qualify, so the idea now gaining traction would be for the House to accept the Senate health care bill as is, pass it without change, and then try to implement as many of the compromises now under discussion as possible in a subsequent reconciliation bill.

Politically, this is difficult, as it means swallowing all of the ugly compromises in the Senate bill whole in hopes of a possible (but not guaranteed) fix down the road. House members would have to go on record in favor of the Cornhusker Kickback, the Senate Cadillac Tax, and all the rest. Obviously, all of the House Democrats who held their noses and voted for their own bill the first time around after being told by their leaders "don't worry, we'll fix it in conference" are right to be extra-skeptical of this approach. But an interesting trial balloon floated by Ron Pollack of Families USA in a recent article in Politico points out that a reconciliation bill amending the health care bill could actually be voted on before the House votes to accept that health care bill.

That's right. When it comes to enacting laws and then later amending those laws, it doesn't matter in what order Congress passes bills. All that matters is the order in which the president signs those bills into law. As long as the president signs the health care bill 30 seconds before he signs the reconciliation bill, the latter can amend or repeal any provisions in the former. So the House and Senate could, in theory, vote on a conference report amending the Senate health care bill before the House actually has to take the tougher vote to accept the Senate bill.

No matter whether the House votes on reconciliation or the Senate bill first, the Speaker can ensure that the health care bill is signed into law before reconciliation. (The dirty little secret of Congress is that even if the House votes to pass the Senate health care bill tomorrow, the Speaker has unilateral power to hold that bill at her desk until January 3 of next year before sending it to the President and starting the 10-day Constitutional veto clock.)