Shortly after receipt of a Cognressional Budget Office (CBO) score that found that the health insurance and student aid overhauls would reduce the deficit by roughly $138 billion over the next years ($1.2 trillion over the next 10 years), the Democratic leadership in Congress posted the details of the bill on-line -as they had promised to do 72 hours prior to a vote. The move sets-up a potential vote this Sunday. Efforts have now intensified to find the 216 votes in the House and 50 votes needed in the Senate to finish work on the package. Analysis of the reconciliation package will be posted shortly on this website. In the interim, the full bill can be accessed here.
Category: Higher Education
Health Insurance and Student Aid Overhauls Likely Headed for Reconciliation
Yesterday, during a speech at the White House, President Obama called on Congress to give health care reform an up or down vote before the Easter congressional recess -beginning March 29th. The message seemed to make clear that the President, along with Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, intend to pursue passage of health insurance reform through the budget reconciliation process. The process forward would have the House pass the Senate’s version of health reform without changes, sending the legislation to the President for signature. Changes to the Senate’s bill would be done through a separate piece of legislation advanced through the budget reconciliation process, avoiding a filibuster, as only a simple majority vote is required.
House and Senate Democratic leaders are working to finalize a reconciliation bill as early as this week. The reconciliation bill would then need to be scored by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). As the reconciliation bill is scored by CBO, Democratic leaders will be working with members of their own caucus to gain consensus on a variety of health care issues and working with the Senate Parliamentarian to figure out which provisions can be included in the reconciliation bill since Senate rules prohibit “extraneous matters” from consideration. The reconciliation bill is seen as key to coaxing some House Democrats to vote in favor of the Senate’s bill, which is opposed by some liberal and conservative Democrats.
Since the Congress can only do one reconciliation bill for fiscal year 2010, the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) would have to advance along with healthcare, be passed through the normal legislative process, or be deferred until a future date. At present, the votes do not exist in the Senate to advance SAFRA through the normal legislative process. As a result, if it is to happen this year, the reconciliation process is the only possible vehicle. The Senate has yet to reveal its own version of SAFRA. However, the legislation is likely to emerge in the next few weeks, and move rapidly in order to meet the Easter deadline set by the President.
Pell grant recipients interested in providing a testimonial to the Senate on the program’s impact are invited to contact Jonathan Nurse (jnurse@uw.edu).
President Obama’s Health Insurance Reform Plan (Updated 2/22)
FY11 Budget Overview
Despite an overall spending freeze proposal from the Obama administration, the student aid and research priorities of the higher education community faired relatively well in the President’s Budget Request for FY11. Within the Department of Education, the PBR seeks to increase the maximum Pell grant to $5,710 in FY11 from the current $5,550 level. More importantly, the proposal would make the Pell grant an entitlement, which would guarantee future increases. However, several of the agency’s student services programs (e.g. TRIO, GEAR UP, Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need) were level funded in the proposal.
On the research side, the National Institutes of Health were provided an increase of $1 billion (3.2%) over FY10 in the FY11 PBR -representing the largest NIH dollar increase in 8 years (outside of the Recovery Act). Additionally, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is provided an 8% increase to $7.4 billion. Within NSF, the Ocean Observatories Initiative — a UW joint project — was provided $90.7 million for FY11 -as expected. The Department of Energy, Office of Science, is provided a 4.4% increase in the PBR. Within DoE, the Advanced Research Projects Agency -Energy (ARPA-E) is slated for its first significant regular annual appropriation -at a level of $300 million. Additionally, workforce investments for scientists and teachers is identified as a priority area for the agency.
The PBR includes an extension of an additional six months, through June 2011, the temporary Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) increase provided by the Recovery Act. The extension will result in an additional $25.5 billion to States for maintaining support for children and families helped by Medicaid. Details on agency and program line items are provided in previous posts, and additional analysis will be provided by the Office of Federal Relations.
The UW FY11 Federal Agenda will express support for many of the increases in student aid and research contained in the PBR. Additionally, UW specific requests will be made in the following areas: tidal energy research and development; promoting health professions through dental, nursing, and physicians assistant programs; environmental sustainability; increasing student services for our returning veterans; emerging research on the treatment of battlefield injuries to eyes and bone; small business development in the Tacoma area; and increasing K-12 learning outcomes through the use of advanced technology in classrooms.
The FY11 appropriations process will play out in the halls of Congress over much of this calendar year, with the goal of having a final budget in place by October 1, 2010. However, as was the case last year, Congress often requires extra time to push spending bills across the finish line.
House Passes Jobs Bill with Higher Ed. Provisions
Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a jobs package (H.R. 2847 -Jobs for Mainstreet Act of 2010) that provides $75 billion of unspent funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) for assistance to states and local governments in avoiding government layoffs and supporting infrastructure repair and modernization.
Of note to the higher education community in the bill is an additional $300 million for the College Work-Study program, as well as the following aid for public colleges and universities:
“Education Jobs Fund: $23 billion for an Education Jobs Fund to help States support an estimated 250,000 education jobs over the next two years. 95% of the funds will be allocated by States to school districts and public institutions of higher education to retain or create jobs to provide educational services and to modernize, renovate, and repair public education facilities. The remaining 5% of funds is reserved for State education-related jobs and administration of the Education Jobs Fund.”
The Senate will not act on a companion bill until January at the earliest.
Health Reform Legislation Passes Finance and Delays Student Aid Reform
Yesterday, 10/13/09, the Senate Finance Committee approved a health reform package on a largely party-line vote of 14-9, with only Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) crossing the partisan divide. The vote in Senate Finance was the last of the five House/Senate committee (3 House committees, 2 Senate Committees) votes before consideration by the chambers. Leadership and select members of the committees of jurisdiction will need to work together to merge bills that have been produced. In the Senate, the reform package will need to clear 60 votes to avoid a filibuster, while in the House only a simple majority is needed. At present, a public insurance option appears to be the major point of contention between the more conservative version of reform produced by the Senate Fiance Committee and legislation advanced by the Senate HELP Committee and the House. After bills pass the Senate and House, differences will again need to be worked out between the chambers so that a single bill can be sent to the President.
Passage of health care reform may be linked to the student aid overhaul that was approved in the House over the summer. If Senate Democrats are unable to pull together the 60 votes necessary to pass health care reform, they may tie the legislation to the student aid bill in the form of a budget reconciliation package that would only require a simple majority to pass. As a result, the Senate companion to the House (H.R. 3221) student aid bill is currently awaiting further developments on the health care reform front. The University of Washington, and much of the higher education advocacy community, is using the extra time allotted for the student aid bill to seek some improvements in the legislation.