House Passes Final Health Care And Student Loan Bill

The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday put the finishing touches on a sweeping $940 billion health-care overhaul, passing important tax and Medicare changes to a broader measure that became law earlier this week.

By a 220-207, the House passed the supplemental bill, which rewrites several provisions of a wider health-care bill signed into law by President Barack Obama on Tuesday.

The legislation also includes a drastic shake-up of the student loan industry, which bans private lenders from originating student loans. The move had been fiercely opposed by banks and other student lenders.

The bill of fixes was already approved Sunday in the House, but it required another House vote because Senate Republicans successfully argued that two minor student-loan provisions should be struck from the measure.

Senate rules attach special requirements to bills considered under budget reconciliation--a fast-track legislative tactic that was deployed by Democrats to pass the bill.

Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin ruled early Thursday that the two provisions must be stripped from the bill, after Republicans pointed out that they would have minimal revenue effect and were therefore extraneous.

Because the bill was changed in the Senate, it had to bounce back to the House for the second vote. The bill, removed of the two provisions, was passed in the Senate earlier Thursday by a 56-43 vote.

The votes culminate a precarious, but ultimately successful strategy put into motion after Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate with the January election of Sen. Scott Brown (R., Mass.).

While the larger health-care bill had already been approved in the Senate before Brown's victory, the second, smaller bill was devised to accommodate changes sought by House Democrats to the original bill.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that, together, the bills will extend insurance coverage to 32 million Americans.

Perhaps most notably, the bill passed Thursday would scale back an excise tax on high-cost health insurance plans and delay its effect until 2018. Another provision would make the legislation's subsidies to purchase private insurance more generous.

With the loss of a Senate seat in the Massachusetts special election, Democrats currently hold a 59-41 majority in the Senate, while 60 votes are needed to break a filibuster. So they hatched a plan to pass the second bill under budget reconciliation, which allowed them to bypass a filibuster and pass the measure by a simple majority of 51 votes.

The reconciliation bill closes a politically unpopular gap in prescription drug coverage under Medicare, the federal health insurance program for seniors.

College aid more student-friendly

Starting this fall Pell Grants for middle- and lower-income college students may increase by $200 to a maximum of $5,550, and up to almost $6,000 in 10 years, if the U.S. Senate passes the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act this week.

The government is expected to use an estimated $36 billion in savings to increase the Pell Grant amount so students will rely less on loans they have to pay back.

Margo Wagner, a Purdue University senior who receives a Pell Grant, said additional funds are always appreciated by cash-strapped students but she questions if the overall cost is worth it.

"I definitely think $200 for everyone does not help," said the forestry and natural resources major. "Some of my books have cost more than that. I'd rather they put more effort into providing bigger grants for needier students. Spreading all this money around just makes it thin."

Nonetheless, financial aid directors at Purdue and Ivy Tech Community College say the increased funding will lessen the burden of working students and those in need of loans.

"We do have some students who can get the Pell Grant and not need to take out a loan," said Beverly Cooper, financial aid director for Ivy Tech's Lafayette region. "The $200 increase will mean they will need less loans."

Lockheed Teams with IRS, Dept. of Education to Aid Students

Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] software developers are helping the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Education make life a whole lot easier for students and their families applying for Federal Student Aid.

Every year millions of prospective college students complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form in their pursuit of funding assistance. The form requires personal financial data that is only available through the IRS. In the past, an applicant had to apply to the IRS, obtain the information, and then submit it along with the application. This took time and additional effort.

To simplify this process, Lockheed Martin worked with the IRS to create a link on the DoEd FAFSA Web page. The developers used Web services to build, test and deploy a shared data system that makes available the data transfer of 14 key pieces of information needed by Department officials to make a determination. To ensure privacy, the process includes the requirement for complete authentication before the data can be transferred. The new process has reduced application time from days or weeks to minutes.

“This project is a perfect example of how our partnership with two government agencies is helping them provide complete citizen service,” said Rocky Thurston, director of financial services. “The result of this initiative has been a faster, easier process for the applicant, the transfer of data that has clarity and is completely accurate, and a demonstration of the possibilities that exist through data sharing.”