The bill provides unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks in many states to people who have had no luck in finding work, and it extends through December the 65% subsidy of health insurance premiums for unemployed workers under the Cobra program.
In addition, the bill provides further aid to financially strapped states to pay rising Medicaid costs and fixes a long-standing problem involving Medicare reimbursement to doctors, preventing them from having to absorb a 21% cut in payments. The bill also extends a variety of popular tax breaks that have expired.
The measure passed on a 62-36 vote largely along party lines. It now moves to House of Representatives, which passed a similar bill last year. Conservatives protested the legislation, saying it would add too much to the nation's $12.5 trillion debt. The measure easily cleared a procedural hurdle Tuesday, when lawmakers voted 66-34 to break a Republican filibuster.
