Legislation designed to complete work on a health-care overhaul will include a House measure to revamp the college student loan program, a top Democrat said.
- Source: Yahoo
“This is critical to passing this in the caucus,” California Representative George Miller, one of the leaders of the health-care effort and chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said today. “People have made it very clear they want to take this home.”
The measure would expand the government’s role by allowing it to provide new college loans directly while ending federal guarantees and subsidies to lenders such as SLM Corp., commonly known as Sallie Mae. That’s caused the plan to draw resistance from senators whose states are home to private lenders.
The education provision would be part of a so-called reconciliation package designed to make changes to a Senate health-care bill passed in December. President Barack Obama is asking the House to approve the original Senate bill as well as the bill with changes; the Senate then would also pass the reconciliation measure
