Originally Posted By TomSawyer The GOP just passed a bill in the House that would tie lower student loan insurance rates to a cut in funding for health screenings for breast and cervical cancer as well as childhood immunizations. <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505245_162-57422845/house-gop-set-to-curb-college-student-loan-costs/" target="_blank">http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-50...n-costs/</a> These preventative health programs save money in the long run by discovering major health issues early on and by making sure kids don't get unnecessarily sick. I'm sure it doesn't have anything to do with the GOP's current war on women to cut funding for even more women's health services, though.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>funding for health screenings for breast and cervical cancer as well as childhood immunizations<< Or as The Man with the Day-Glo Tan calls it: "A slush fund."
Originally Posted By ecdc I really don't get it. I suppose it's possible that I'm so enmeshed in left-wingery that I can only see this for what it sure looks like: A bad SNL parody. I mean, cutting funds for breast and cervical cancer screening? Is there something I'm missing? Please, some moderate or conservative, help me understand why cutting funding for these programs is a fantabulous idea while restoring taxes to their 1990s levels for the top 1% is a horrible idea. I...I just don't get it.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 It's particularly tone deaf considering how loudly they've been insisting that the "war on women" is all bogus - just Democratic politicking, not based on anything real whatsoever. And then they go cut funds for, among other things, screenings for two kinds of cancer (nearly) unique to women. It's like they can't help themselves.
Originally Posted By DyGDisney This quote sums up the big difference between Democrats and Republicans these days: "For House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the emphasis was the GOP's cuts in the preventive health program, whose initiatives she said include breast cancer screening and children's immunizations. She contrasted that with a Democratic bill extending the low student rates by cutting subsidies to oil and natural gas companies, which is opposed by the GOP. Pelosi characterized the Republican view as, "'We prefer tax subsidies for big oil rather than the health of America's women.'"
Originally Posted By Autopia Deb After reading the article I would say this one is more on the pig-headed refusal to work with the other side of the isle than another onslaught in the war on women. Cutting funding to preventive medicine programs is really penny wise pound foolish and I suspect the reason they chose to cut that program was because it would piss off Democrats.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Probably so. In which case they arguably deserve whatever damage with women they get even more, just for being so cynical.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder More sleaziness from the GOP. Boehner has the nerve to call Obama pathetic by going to college campuses to plead his case, yet who's the asshole whose party is trying to peck away at the Health Care law by tying it to reduced interest rates on student loans? And that isn't pathetic?
Originally Posted By TomSawyer So student loans are actually paid by the students and they can't be discharged in a bankruptcy, right? What exactly is the taxpayer's exposure here? Is the focus really on the income that we are receiving from the interest itself?
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Correct, they can't be discharged in a BK. There is no exposure, and the higher rate of 6.8% still isn't bad. When I got my loans for law school in the mid 90's, the rate was 8% plus, although later I was able to consolidate them to 4.25%. Many people I know are paying 8%, which sounds high considering rates today, but was a deal at one point in time. The sleazy part for me is the GOP tying it to their efforts to dismantle the health care bill. The two just don't go together, and it's undeniably gamesmanship
