We will probably hear a lot over the next two weeks about the lapse of extended jobless and COBRA health benefits for some unemployed Americans, but there are a number of other items that are running out of time as well in this legislative dispute.

One part of this bill that is now hung up in the Senate would extend payment rates for doctors under Medicare, and avoid a scheduled 21% cut in those payments.

This is the so-called "doc fix" issue.  Back in the late 1990's, the Congress enacted a series of balanced budget efforts, one of which was designed to hold down on Medicare costs by paying doctors less for services.  The problem is that Congress has postponed every cut in payments, so if it actually took effect, it would cut those payments by 21%.

It means that starting later this week, the feds will hold back claims for Medicare payment processing for doctors until a new law is approved.  It means doctors won't get squeezed and lose any money in the interim.

Also in this bill is a short term extension of Medicare therapy caps exceptions, as those will expire on March 31.  What is the Medicare therapy caps exceptions process, you ask?  The limits are designed to hold down reimbursement costs for Medicare Part B therapy services, but there are exceptions which are considered by the feds.

This is another area where the Congress has been asked to make a long term solution, but has not.

Also expiring this week, the official authorization for the National Flood Insurance Program and an extension of Satellite TV licensing rules.

One other interesting item is in this bill as well.  Remember back in early March, when the Congress couldn't get the short term extension done for jobless and COBRA benefits, also caught up in that were about 2,000 workers for various federal highway agencies.

They were furloughed for a couple of days, and thus lost pay for their days.  This bill says those workers "shall be compensated for the period of that lapse at their standard rates of compensation, as determined under policies established by the Secretary of Transportation."

Congress isn't back until the week of April 12, meaning all of the above items will stay in limbo through at least that week.

One last thing - yesterday I wrote that I had looked back through ten years of supplemental appropriations bills, and never found an example of where emergency spending had been paid for.

Well, the office of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) - he is the Senator leading the charge on paying for these plans - found one example of extra spending being offset by budget cuts.

"In 1995, emergency spending associated with the Oklahoma City bombing was offset," wrote Coburn's spokesman John Hart.

Sure enough, when I went back to find that legislation, the bill had emergency spending and rescissions.

But I hate to break it to Coburn's office, that the entire bill wasn't paid for, as some of the spending was declared an "emergency", which means it wasn't technically added to the deficit.