3/30/2010

Health-Care Fix

“Obama Signs Fix for Health-Care Measure, Student Loan Program”. This actually might be one good thing that comes out of the health care bill. The US government pays many students interest on college loans already. They might as well keep that money and be able to loan it out to more students as an interest free loan or even better, as bigger Pell Grants.

5 comments:

Hunter said...

I still have a problem with this part of the health care bill. It sounds like a good thing for students, but how is more government regulation going to help? Students may like this part of the bill until they take an intro econ class that shows the problems with government getting their hands into everything. Way to much regulation to be worth it.

luke said...

The problem i have with this part of the health care bill is that While its true it saves them from paying interest to the banks it is a program that is functioning perfectly well in the private sector. In a system where political influence has caused so many problems i think they should focus on fixing those problems instead of changing what already works.

Logan said...

If you do believe that education is a positive externality on society, then you'd find Government spending to help students increase their higher education a good thing indeed. Now I don't mean to argue whether or not education is a positive externality, but I do want to ask the question: why on Earth is this part of the Healthcare Bill? Shouldn't it be a different bill entirely, or at least tied into something related to education? Just another piece of pork in my mind.

Victoria said...

I agree with Luke, why change something that has worked for years? Of course it’s going to be better for students, but what about all the people that are going to lose their jobs due to this plan? Should we think about the fact that some of these people who are losing jobs are the parents of the students getting the benefits of the loan plan?

Dr. Tufte said...

-1 on Luke for capitalization errors.

Elijah: don't be silly.

We have a government that can't afford it's public education systems to begin with. Yet, this sort of move is motivated by the same sort of thinking as everyone-ought-to-own-a-house. Take my word for it, this will implode within the next 20 years.

The reason they're doing this is that they've done the same thing to the student loan system that they're in the process of doing to the Medicare system: reducing payments to the private sector, with an expectation that quality won't change. This student loan change is being put into place precisely because the private sector can't make money off this any more.

And ... don't get me started about education is a positive externality to society. That's a platitude. Appropriate education, for capable people to better themselves is a positive externality. This has nothing to do with that at all. It's nothing but a welfare scheme with a pretty face.