Heidi Alexander: “this is an effort to stop the Federal Government from overcharging 19 million college students to help pay for the…”

“this is an effort to stop the Federal Government from overcharging 19 million college students to help pay for the health care bill. It would reduce from 6.8 percent to 5.3 percent the interest on their loans. It would save $1,700 to $1,800 on the average of a $25,000 loan over 10 years. Why are we talking student loans during a health care bill? Because we can't trust the other side with the Yellow Pages. If they find it in there, they think the government ought to be doing it. They have taken over the Federal student loan program, and they are running up the debt $\1/2\ trillion to do it. They are firing 31,000 people by July 1. They are going to borrow money at 2.8 percent and loan it to students at 6.8 percent and use the rest to help pay for health care and for the government. CBO has said this is $8.7 billion of overcharging students to pay for health care. So a 'yes' means don't overcharge.”