WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- U.S. House Democrats have decided to hold a standalone vote on the Senate-passed health-care overhaul bill, dropping a plan to vote instead only on a rule related to the bill which, if approved, would have led to the legislation's passage.

The decision to hold two separate votes rather than rolling the entire measure together comes in the face of opposition from some Democratic lawmakers to the plan.

Vincent Morris, communications director for House Rules Committee Chairman Louise Slaughter (D., N.Y.), said Saturday there would be separate votes.

Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D., Calif.), a member of the Rules Committee, said at a hearing of the panel that he understood that it was now the plan to hold separate votes. Cardoza was one of the lawmakers who had objected to holding a single vote.

Democrats had planned to use a process known as "deeming" the bill, in which the legislation would be passed by voting on a rule related to it rather than casting a vote on the underlying package itself. Democrats believed the original plan would have given political cover for some of the party's lawmakers to vote in favor of the health-care legislation without having to actually vote for the underyling measure.

Republicans had cried foul, saying health care is sufficiently important that it deserves a straight up-or-down vote on the House floor.

Democrats counter that when Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, they too used the "deeming" process for controversial matters.

The process was most recently used for a substantial increase in the country's debt ceiling.

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