On Tuesday morning, President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590), the health care overhaul bill that cleared the House of Representatives by a slim margin on Sunday. The Senate will now begin consideration of the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010 (H.R. 4872), the bill that contains “fixes” to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Both measures will face intense scrutiny in the coming days.

Before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was even signed, lawmakers had introduced legislation to repeal it. In addition, a number of states have announced that they plan to file a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the health care bill’s requirement that most individuals purchase health insurance or pay a fine.

With respect to the reconciliation bill, although a simple majority is needed to approve the legislation, Senate Republicans intend to raise a series of objections and points of order against the bill, and offer a number of amendments in order to delay the process and force the bill to be returned to the House for another round of votes. Critics of the bill will likely scour the legislation for provisions that could violate the Byrd rule – created by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) – which prevents the inclusion of provisions in a budget reconciliation bill that lack a budgetary impact. If the Senate parliamentarian rules in favor of any such challenge, the Democrats would need at least 60 votes to overrule the point of order, which would not likely be feasible.

The first of such challenges failed on Monday, when Republicans claimed that the 40% “Cadillac” excise tax would impact Social Security and thus violate the Budget Act. Many more such challenges are expected, although Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has expressed hope that a final vote could come this weekend.