Senate Dems keep unemployment, Medicaid funding bundled

Despite some calls for un-bundling the various provisions of a bill that would extend unemployment benefits, Senate Democrats are apparently intent on keeping the whole thing as one big package. The Hill reports that Dems are working behind the scenes to get the full package passed rather than trying to pass the Medicaid funding and the unemployment extension separately from the various tax provisions in the bill.

Some Democrats have weighed the possibility of separating the Medicaid provision — which would extend emergency federal funding through the first half of 2011 — in hopes of passing it more quickly and preventing severe budget cuts by cash-strapped states, which will begin as early as this week.

But Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said Friday that that’s not the Democrats’ plan.

“That’s part of the [tax] bill,” Stabenow told reporters on a phone call. “It’s in there because we’re committed to keeping it in there.”

Stabenow said that, if a deal is struck, the package could hit the floor at any time. But until then, it will remain just that: a package.

And given that no amount of compromising with Republicans has garnered even a single changed vote, it seems unlikely that the full package is going to pass anytime soon.