Student loan changes to get health care bill approved ?

[Modelworks]

I fail to see what student loans have to do with health care. I guess anything is game if it will get the bill passed.

http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes....visions-may-ease-passage-of-health-care-bill/

Student Loan Provisions May Ease Passage of Health Care Bill

Many House Democrats reacted enthusiastically on Friday to the word that a proposed overhaul of student loan programs would be included with major health care legislation in an expedited budget package to be offered in Congress.

The student loan overhaul would end government subsidies to private, commercial student lenders that have profited handsomely by making virtually risk-free loans using taxpayer money. The education bill would also redirect billions of dollars in savings from ending the payments to an array of popular education programs, including expanded Pell grants for low-income students.

As a result, some supporters of the health care bill said they were confident the financial aid measure would help generate votes for the overall package.


The bottom line? Theoretically, at least, the Democrats have a chance of using the education measure to convince 35 lawmakers to switch their votes from no on health care to yes on a combined package that includes the financial aid changes. And by including the education measure in the budget package, they seem to have risked just one yes vote on health care, that of Mr. Kanjorski.

http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/democrats-press-ahead-with-student-loan-overhaul/

The drive to pass health care legislation intersected on Wednesday with calls for President Obama’s proposed overhaul of the student loan system.

House Democrats plan to tack a student loan package onto the health care bill in order to get the controversial overhaul through the chamber.

“It is a perfect climate for us to pass a wonderful bill to expand opportunity to access health care and education in our country,” said the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, standing on the sun-soaked steps of the Capitol before a group of some 200 students representing liberal organizations like Campus Progress and Young Invincibles.

I guess its new name is health care and education bill.

 

[theeedude]

Whatever they gotta do is fine by me. Ideally we wouldn't have this obstructionism in the Senate going on that required jumping through these hoops instead of voting up and down on specific proposals, but since we do, it's gloves off.

 

[piasabird]

Democrats dont like banks controlling student loans because they think all the money should be controlled by the Federal Government. More money is more power and less freedom.

 

[theeedude]

Education is freedom.

 

[cubeless]

Education is freedom.

and free money that you don't have to pay back when you fail out of classes gives you a couple more semesters of freedom before you go to work at mcdonalds...

i'm not against the concept of edu assistance, but it sure needs to be made a lot more accountable for results...

 

[Thump553]

Democrats dont like banks controlling student loans because they think all the money should be controlled by the Federal Government. More money is more power and less freedom.

That's not only total BS philisophically but it's also total BS factually. The present factual situation under our so-called free enterprise system is that the federal government pays subsidies to private lenders for them to them to give student loans. The federal government already controls every aspect of these loans (if the lender wants the federal guarantee).

This bill will take that money wasted on bank subsidies and instead include it in the pool loaned out to students. A win-win as far as taxpayers and students go. Nothing in this bill prevents or even affects the ability of lenders to privately give out student loans. Losing out on the easy federal gravy train is the GOP's patrons main complaint.

I find great hilarity in the excuses various GOP officials give for opposing this change, especially those that find socialism at every aspect of any Obama policy. Apparently the government subsidizing business is good and honorable in their world.

 

[Thump553]

and free money that you don't have to pay back when you fail out of classes gives you a couple more semesters of freedom before you go to work at mcdonalds...

i'm not against the concept of edu assistance, but it sure needs to be made a lot more accountable for results...

What in the world are you talking about? For years now federally guaranteed student loans were essentially made nondischargeable in bankruptcy. Perhaps in 1990 you would have had a point but certainly not now.

 

[spidey07]

Yet another government takeover. They won't be happy until they have it all.

 

[theeedude]

and free money that you don't have to pay back when you fail out of classes gives you a couple more semesters of freedom before you go to work at mcdonalds...

i'm not against the concept of edu assistance, but it sure needs to be made a lot more accountable for results...

Do you want young people's destinies determined by the state of credit markets at the time of their HS graduation?

 

[joutlaw]

What's not mentioned in this story is how many people will lose their jobs if this passes. My wife is one of them. She works for a private company that provides assistance to highschool students who need loans. They originate the loans and service them. If this bill passes they are done.

 

[CycloWizard]

Do you want young people's destinies determined by the state of credit markets at the time of their HS graduation?

Being beholden to the government to receive education is not freedom - it's slavery. If you had your way, I wouldn't have been able to go to college because the federal government decided I wasn't cool enough to receive federal loans. Thankfully, CitiBank disagreed with them.

 

[ElFenix]

i still have no idea why they think that increasing demand will ever make college more affordable.


especially since this is just a giant handout to UoP.

 

[Hacp]

Get rid of student loans period. If private banks want to make private loans to students, that is fine. However, the government shouldn't be in the loan business and it shouldn't be giving handouts to big banks either.

 

[Special K]

What's not mentioned in this story is how many people will lose their jobs if this passes. My wife is one of them. She works for a private company that provides assistance to highschool students who need loans. They originate the loans and service them. If this bill passes they are done.

Does this change make the whole student loan system more efficient though? I'm certainly not going to wish that anyone loses their job, but isn't job loss a natural consequence of gains in efficiency? I'm sure many people have lost their jobs to automation/machines over time, but were those machines/automations bad in the grand scheme of things?

 

[Special K]

Get rid of student loans period. If private banks want to make private loans to students, that is fine. However, the government shouldn't be in the loan business and it shouldn't be giving handouts to big banks either.

This may not necessarily be a bad thing in the long run, as I believe that easy access to student loans is one of the reasons why college costs are growing at over 2x/inflation. We have many students attending college that shouldn't be, and the colleges are all too happy to take their money.

 

[theevilsharpie]

What's not mentioned in this story is how many people will lose their jobs if this passes. My wife is one of them. She works for a private company that provides assistance to highschool students who need loans. They originate the loans and service them. If this bill passes they are done.

Government loans aren't going to originate and service themselves. The bill may eliminate your wife's job at her current employer, but it opens up doors of opportunities in government or whoever ends up taking on the administration of government student loans.

Sorry, but preserving someone's job isn't an excuse to maintain a wasteful institution.

 

[Tab]

Being beholden to the government to receive education is not freedom - it's slavery. If you had your way, I wouldn't have been able to go to college because the federal government decided I wasn't cool enough to receive federal loans. Thankfully, CitiBank disagreed with them.

As for the public education system?

 

[theevilsharpie]

Yet another government takeover. They won't be happy until they have it all.

Another pearl of wisdom by Spidey :awe:

 

[RedChief]

Government loans aren't going to originate and service themselves. The bill may eliminate your wife's job at her current employer, but it opens up doors of opportunities in government or whoever ends up taking on the administration of government student loans.

Sorry, but preserving someone's job isn't an excuse to maintain a wasteful institution.

So a private sector job is now replaced with a public sector job and thats a good thing?

 

[CycloWizard]

As for the public education system?

That's a sentence fragment - probably the result of a public education. Care to restate your question in the form of a sentence so we can understand what you were trying to say?

 

[theevilsharpie]

So a private sector job is now replaced with a public sector job and thats a good thing?

In this instance, yes.

 

[Tab]

That's a sentence fragment - probably the result of a public education. Care to restate your question in the form of a sentence so we can understand what you were trying to say?

Being beholden to the government to receive education is not freedom - it's slavery.

- Are we NOT required to goto high school?

 

[CycloWizard]

Being beholden to the government to receive education is not freedom - it's slavery.

- Are we NOT required to goto high school?

I'm fairly certain that the answer depends on the state. In any case, how does that affect my previous statement? Should it be the role of government to force people to do things? Do you think there is an equivalence to being forced to attend a free high school and being forced to pay for college?

 

[Tab]

I'm fairly certain that the answer depends on the state. In any case, how does that affect my previous statement? Should it be the role of government to force people to do things? Do you think there is an equivalence to being forced to attend a free high school and being forced to pay for college?

Hmm. I'll have to think about it.

 

[theeedude]

So a private sector job is now replaced with a public sector job and thats a good thing?

It was government subsidized private sector job to begin with.