Like just about everyone else, lawmakers in Congress will try to cram some work into this week and then get out of town as quickly as possible.  Whether that involves work on health care legislation is unclear.

The focus again on health care will be the U.S. Senate, where Democrats still haven't been able to finalize a bill for floor debate, as they wait for cost estimates on a series of plans from the Congressional Budget Office.

Democrats had hoped to get those numbers last week, so they could start the parliamentary battles which will be needed to get a bill on the floor of the Senate as soon as this week.

At this point, Democrats still don't have final bill language in the Senate, but they have held out the possibility of working into the weekend on the initial motion to proceed to the health care bill.

The Senate will start the week by finishing work on a Veterans spending bill.  It won't surprise me one bit to see Republicans try to offer an amendment to that on moving detainees from Guantanamo Bay to New York for civilian trial.

And it wouldn't surprise me to see someone offer that as an amendment on the health care bill, either.  That's the beauty - or the curse - of the Senate, depending on whether you are in the minority or majority.

The House returns after a week off, and has no heavy lifting on its schedule, as more post offices will be renamed.

Seven different major budget bills remain unfinished, but only one finalized bill might be ready this week for lawmakers.

In other words, most of those budget plans will probably be jammed together into one "omnibus" bill in December.

Stay tuned on that.