Patterico's Pontifications

3/12/2010

Democrats may have Health Care Deal; Choose Student Loans Over Babies

Filed under: Abortion,Health Care — DRJ @ 6:58 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

The AP reports House Democrats may pass health care reform next week following agreements today that call for more federal spending on student loans:

“Under White House pressure to act swiftly, House and Senate Democratic leaders reached for agreement Friday on President Barack Obama’s health care bill, sweetened suddenly by fresh billions for student aid and a sense that breakthroughs are at hand.

“It won’t be long,” before lawmakers vote, predicted Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She said neither liberals’ disappointment over the lack of a government health care option nor a traditional mistrust of the Senate would prevent passage in the House.
***
The decision to add far-reaching student aid changes to the bill had its roots in obscure parliamentary rules governing the Senate’s debate of the legislation. But House Democrats and the White House quickly seized on it as a way to advance a top administration priority that lacks the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate otherwise.

The measure would require the government to originate student loans, closing out a role for banks and other private lenders who charge a fee. Obama proposed taking the savings and plowing it into higher Pell Grants that go to needy college students.

Officials said that under current estimates, the change would free as much as $66 billion over a decade, although Pelosi indicated she wanted it spread beyond Pell Grants to other education programs.”

Increased student loan spending added to a health care bill gave Republicans another reason to oppose Democratic-backed legislation:

“Well of course it’s a very bad idea,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “We now have the government running banks, insurance companies, car companies, and they do want to take over the student loan business.”

He said it was symptomatic of Democrats’ determination to have the government expand its tentacles into absolutely everything.”

Only liberals could believe more federal spending will get people to agree to more federal spending, but the really big news is Rep. Bart Stupak’s belief that Democrats want federal funding for abortion because they know the government can’t afford to pay for more health care:

“Stupak notes that his negotiations with House Democratic leaders in recent days have been revealing. “I really believe that the Democratic leadership is simply unwilling to change its stance,” he says. “Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered.” The arguments they have made to him in recent deliberations, he adds, “are a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party.”

What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”

Margaret Sanger (and others) would be pleased.

H/T Drudge Report.

— DRJ

43 Responses to “Democrats may have Health Care Deal; Choose Student Loans Over Babies”

  1. I suspect Stupak is not long for the Democrat party. He’ll become a moderate Republican soon.

    John Hitchcock (be23b3) — 3/12/2010 @ 7:03 pm

  2. Color me confused… and somewhat unimpressed.

    Most accounts have the House Dems short of votes (for whatever reason) to pass the Senate bill as-is… if they did, they would have held the vote. Adding language to mollify the Stupak contingent changes the Senate bill, requiring it to go back to the Senate (am I missing something?). Wouldn’t adding in student loans amount to the same thing?

    Maybe the Dems thinking is that the House would pass the revised bill, then send that back to the Senate to pass with 50 votes plus Biden. But if that were the case, why wouldn’t they have long ago gone this route?

    steve sturm (116925) — 3/12/2010 @ 7:08 pm

  3. From what I understand, the House could possibly combine 2 bills into a single vote. Vote yes for “these 2 bills” or vote no. It’s definitely more trickery and ethics issues have never bothered the “most ethical Congress in history” before, so…

    John Hitchcock (be23b3) — 3/12/2010 @ 7:11 pm

  4. Steve – it is my understanding that the bribes and take-overs will be included in the reconciliation of the bill that has not been passed, but will be deemed to have been passed by voting on the reconciliation. So, they will amend a bill that is not a law by passing a bill they are not voting on. Make sense?

    JD (0dfb18) — 3/12/2010 @ 7:22 pm

  5. Article 1, Section 5, Paragraph 2 of the US Constitution says: Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member.

    With all the tricks and rules violations going on recently, I would hope that any bills passed while violating the rules of each House would be considered unconstitutional due to the breaking of those rules.

    John Hitchcock (be23b3) — 3/12/2010 @ 7:29 pm

  6. Can we build buy it? Yes we can!

    htom (412a17) — 3/12/2010 @ 7:44 pm

  7. Ok, strikeout is broken again. Showed up in preview, gone in the post.

    c/build/\strike{build}/

    htom (412a17) — 3/12/2010 @ 7:48 pm

  8. It’s (strike)(/strike) but with the carrots instead of the parentheses. As far as I know, the strike button has never worked.

    John Hitchcock (be23b3) — 3/12/2010 @ 8:07 pm

  9. “and they do want to take over the student loan business.”

    Is this guy aware of how the subsidies work now?

    imdw (490521) — 3/12/2010 @ 8:35 pm

  10. Eliminating the private student loan market makes it more likely students will pay colleges using federal student loans. IMO, that makes it easier for the federal government to impose conditions on colleges. For example, I could see the Obama Administraion refusing to fund loans to students at religious colleges on the basis the colleges discriminate against gays when their leaders preach homosexuality is a sin.

    DRJ (daa62a) — 3/12/2010 @ 9:03 pm

  11. We could have ACORN or whatever they’re calling themselves these days handle the loans. They need the money plus they swear they are getting their act together, not that it wasn’t together or anything before.

    daleyrocks (718861) — 3/12/2010 @ 9:04 pm

  12. “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more.

    Quite unusual for liberals to be so bottom-line oriented. However, if they’re as calculating and devious as implied, and if it’s true that higher rates of abortions over the past 30-or-so years have indirectly removed criminal types from America’s streets — and if many of those types tend to be associated with pro-Democrat-Party, liberal communities (meaning a reduction in kids born in such places eventually will result in fewer idiotic leftist voters) then, well, c’est la vie, suckers.

    Of course, I’m being very facetious, even more so since recent statistics indicate that, if anything, the number of children born in America to black and Latina women is coming closer to equaling and even exceeding the number born to white women. So a lot of liberals being so cavalier about abortions is likely to be just another example of their ass-backwardness. IOW, far too many on the left bleed their hearts over, say, little Fido and Kitty while perceiving the human species as but a horrible cause of GLOBAL WARMING!!, a threat to mother Earth!!

    Mark (411533) — 3/12/2010 @ 11:06 pm

  13. “What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more.”

    I’d like stupak to tell us who is actually making that argument, for accountability.

    Though it appears that increasing pell grants seems to be inconsistent with that argument.

    imdw (7e609c) — 3/13/2010 @ 6:18 am

  14. “Eliminating the private student loan market makes it more likely students will pay colleges using federal student loans.”

    I don’t get where you’re getting that the private market is being eliminated. They’re ending the subsidies. Does this bill actually eliminate non-stafford loans? That’s been in none of the reporting.

    imdw (8f8ead) — 3/13/2010 @ 6:33 am

  15. That perspective puts people as just another animal, only good for fighting for a share of the earth’s resources. That is a damnable (literally) attitude in my opinion. Human beings are the one creature on earth which routinely can do things to better the earth. These people see the millions of aborted unborn children as that many fewer mouths to feed. Had they a bit of understanding, they would see the loss of millions of productive young adults who would be easing the burden of national debt and an aging population.

    Going along with Mark at #12, that line of reasoning was presented in the book “Freakonomics”, I believe, and Bill Bennett caught grief for being a racist when he quoted it and condemned it. All they heard was the quote which they attributed to him and claimed it was representative of what he believed.

    MD in Philly (70a1ba) — 3/13/2010 @ 7:34 am

  16. “These people see the millions of aborted unborn children as that many fewer mouths to feed. Had they a bit of understanding, they would see the loss of millions of productive young adults who would be easing the burden of national debt and an aging population.”

    Some people look at immigration this way.

    imdw (5b7d57) — 3/13/2010 @ 12:37 pm

  17. Some people look at immigration this way.
    Comment by imdw — 3/13/2010 @ 12:37 pm

    Many people look at legal immigration that way, and only as one factor. Illegal immigration is another story.

    Stashiu3 (44da70) — 3/13/2010 @ 12:45 pm

  18. imdw, except that no one is aborting illegal immigrants. The difference being, one group is given the opportunity to live their lives; the other group is not even allowed to take their first breath.

    Dana (1e5ad4) — 3/13/2010 @ 12:46 pm

  19. Some people look at immigration this way.

    Yea, and they might have a point were it not for issues like the following.

    CNN.com, May 2009:

    Nearly 6.2 million students in the United States between the ages of 16 and 24 in 2007 dropped out of high school, fueling what a report released Tuesday called “a persistent high school dropout crisis.”

    The total represents 16 percent of all people in the United States in that age range in 2007. Most of the dropouts were Latino or black, according to a report by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Alternative Schools Network in Chicago, Illinois.

    Men and blacks and Hispanics of both genders are among those particularly prone to dropping out of high school….Nearly three of 10 Latinos, including recent immigrants, were dropouts (27.5 percent).

    Of course, all the limousine liberals — and one does not have to be wealthy to be guilty of that type of idiocy — who claim otherwise will then run off to some protected bubble and send their precious kids to private schools.

    Mark (411533) — 3/13/2010 @ 1:03 pm

  20. Mark @12 and MD @15 – Just more of the disguised racism of our supposedly tolerant liberal illuminati. Margaret Sanger would indeed be proud as DRJ points out.

    daleyrocks (718861) — 3/13/2010 @ 1:09 pm

  21. Some people look at immigration this way.
    Comment by imdw — 3/13/2010 @ 12:37 pm

    — That’s right. We need to declare amnesty for all of the illegals, because otherwise there won’t be enough people to do everything that needs doing. 300 million legal citizens isn’t enough. And, of course, all of these illegals are productive & young and will contribute to resources instead of draining them.

    Icy Texan (9ded52) — 3/13/2010 @ 1:20 pm

  22. Beware the “Roe Effect”!

    More Abortions = Less Liberals.

    AD - RtR/OS! (32a2d3) — 3/13/2010 @ 2:34 pm

  23. Funny cartoon … except that its gonna take our economy with it.

    SPQR (26be8b) — 3/13/2010 @ 5:29 pm

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