Let’s just toss in every politically disasterous concept. There’s certainly a plethora of items that can be included, which they can in some way or another claim to be related to health care. Why not push all of them?

We can call it kitchen sinkerism!

Amnesty, gun control, etc. They all lead to rising health care costs. let’s throw everythng in there and claim it will save infinity billion dollars!!

They can see the writing on the wall. If and when they vote on Obamacare, even if it’s tomorrow, they won’t have nearly enough time to shove anything else through the system. before November Considering the destruction of the student-loan industry, and any other industry the administration and the Democrat majorities have in their sights, is vastly more important than winning elections, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more things tacked onto this the further we go.

A government takeover is beyond any reasonable persons comprehension. Someone will have to explain the math related to this move. Empirical evidence related to the government creeping involvement will yield several observations;

1- The cost of higher education continues to rise each year without any reasonable explanation as to why
2- Students continue to achieve increasing levels of debt because, wait for it, the cost of education continue to rise. I suppose someday the government will ask the schools- why?
3- Evil bank margins on student loans have been shrinking for years. Ditto the incentives for servicers
4- Nobody (including schools) likes the bureaucratic government Nazi’s that have increasingly thrust themselves into the process. I bet they can’t wait for a complete takeover (throwing crumbs on the servicing piece ain’t gonna cut it – long term)

Beyond these issues, I am curious what the net result on related debt will be. Plus silly statements such as this on H.R. 3221;

“Unlike the lender-based program, the Direct Loan program is entirely insulated from market swings and can therefore guarantee students access to low-cost federal college loans, in any economy.”

I suppose that means that taxpayers now take it in the neck when someone defaults or the economics sour? Sort of like a rolling Bailout-Stimulus-Behemoth.

is if Biden overrules the inevitable ruling of the Senate Parliamentarian. There’s no way taking over the student loan industry can be part of “reconciling” the health bill, under an honest interpretation of the rules.

There are actually two reasons they want to do this: first, as you say, because the R’s will completely shut down the entire legislative branch if they go thru with reconciliation — so this is the last bill until January. Hell, they might as well insert EVERYTHING that’s currently waiting in committee…card check, cap and trade…

The second: it forces the Senate to act on the reconciliation bill (if they want the student loan takeover) rather than simply betraying the House Dems (again) by saying: Gee thanks for passing our Senate Health Reform bill and dropping reconciliation like a bad habit.

Not financially focused, is that he who controls the dollars can control the curriculum. All that needs to happen under the governments control is to have some folks from the Department of Education going to schools once in a while, and if they have one too many conservative/libertarian professors, they go on the list of schools that money from the federal government cannot go to. Say bye bye to small religious focused schools, and other private schools, but the ivy league will be okay.

So they can claim”savings” frim student loan takeover to make the reconciliation bill deficit neutral.

Anyone see how Obama is delaying his trip to Asia to push HCR through? They must think he can pull this through.

The purpose will be to push more students into government-approved employment.

And again, as alluded to above, the control of universities – on top of the K-12 power grab from the national curriculum and “Race to the Top” that the government can exert by controlling eligibility for student aid – I really have to say this is straight out of the Soviet playbook of total government control over the content of education, which is the necessary (but as history teaches us, no sufficient condition for creating the “New Man”.

Of course in line with savings, the plan is to spend more. If you have marbles between your ears this makes perfect sense. Historically the bad/classified loan percentages on student loans have always been outsized, but the private lenders did make real efforts to collect or manage them. I’m sure[?] the Feds will herniate themselves to collect or minimize bad debts.
Actually, they can’t wait to pee our money against the walls while having more power, the purpose of it all.
Harkin though is nuts enough to believe his spiel, he has plenty of company.

Wouldn’t we risk colleges and universities adopting a Left-wing bias concomitant with Government influence?

(If my tongue were any more firmly in cheek, it would poke out through the other side.)

It gets to tell you what you can do with it. If it runs the student loan program, it gets to tell the schools what they can teach. If you can’t get a loan from anywhere else, and you can’t afford to pay out of pocket since the heavy subsidies destroy the market pricing mechanisms you are stuck with what options they present to you. The plan is to do this until every college educated person agrees that 2+2 actually equals 5, climate change makes sense, and govt run health care is the only way to improve quaity and price point for health services.

Control over curriculum and likely over Doctors. When the government holds all of the US graduating MD class’s debt-what voice in the physician community will oppose single payer?? What doctor will decide not to take Medicaid?? –Will this be a requirement to keep loans in deferral?

first, the reason why healthcare costs & Insurance plans are unaffordable is because of Gov’t intervention. They have been creating “redistribution of our wealth” mandates all along by imposing policies on each and every healthcare provider by insisting those ‘without’ get it for Free. Hospitals, Dr’s, clinics, Labs Diagnostic ctr’s give out free care to a chosen lot of folks mandated by the gov’t, in which they must turn around and ‘off-set’ their losses by charging those of us capable of paying our own way (regardless of self-imposed sacrifices to do so) an inflated cost for services. The result of our submitting the ‘inflated’ fees for service charges to our insurance companies, in turn causes them to pay more out of their coffers and turn around and charge ‘us’ much higher premiums each year, while we receive diminish coverages. With that, more and more employers must make higher contributions for their employees Plans to where the employee’s can’t afford the increase in annual premiums, or revert to lessor plans for decent coverage. In turn, the business and employers turn around and charge their customers (we the consumer) more for their services/products to offset their losses. Do you see what’s happening?

Now they want to subsidize 31M more without insurance while claiming it won’t add to the deficit or cost us more??? These are the same people who gave us Medicare and provided loopholes for fraud & now crying poverty and cutting back on Medicare to fund this Reform bill… they gave us Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae for making home ownership more affordable for ‘those’ without while strong arming banks to give out loans to those who couldn’t afford it. So now they want to take over College Loan Funding away from the banks, etc. for making it more affordable for those without… passing the cost and burden to those of us struggling to put our own kids thru college. Not only that, but they will force our kids to go into Community Svc or work for the Gov’t for x-amt of time in order to qualify for lower student loans or Free education… essentially having control who gets into these schools… Remember the ’70s & ’80s and schools having mandated Fed Quota’s on certain student population groups? This is nothing more than additional Gov’t intervention and a means to promote BO’s “redistribution of the wealth”.

Wake up America… ever hear of Norman Thomas?

Any loan that comes from gov financial aid is already a government backed loan. Why should private banks receive subsidized interest and government guarantees? This is doing nothing to the true private student loans only to the loans that are already government backed and received through federal financial aid. We really look silly bringin up these issues. These should have been brought up when the government started giving out student loans and subsidizing some of them.

Let’s say
I owe $50,000 in student loans
20,000 are subsidized
I recieve food stamps and I apply for an economic hardship deferment
or
I am unemployed and I apply for an unemployment deferment
or
I enroll in another semester of college and I receive an in-school deferment

The government pays the interest on the 20,000 that is subsidized. Why should a private bank get money? These loans are guaranteed by the government, if a person defaults the bank still gets their money.