The New York Times says:
Lots of Democrats can point to lots of different moments when they think the health care bill was brought back from the brink of collapse.Learn more about the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act.
But for a number of senior House Democrats, the crucial turning point was a meeting the night of March 9 in the offices of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It was supposed to be a strategy session with Senate Democratic leaders about the budget reconciliation procedure that Democrats were planning to use to make final changes to the health care bill and push them through the Senate on a simple majority vote.
Instead, the session focused entirely on the question of whether to include another of President Obama’s top legislative priorities — a sweeping overhaul of federal student loan programs — in the reconciliation package.
The budget resolution approved by Congress last spring provided for completing both major health care legislation and major education legislation through reconciliation, which adjusts federal policy to meet specific goals for reducing the deficit.
A trio of House leaders — Representatives James E. Clyburn, the Democratic whip; George Miller, the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee; and Xavier Becerra of California, the vice chairman of the Democratic caucus — argued strenuously in favor of including the education proposal.
...Although overshadowed by the larger health care fight, the inclusion of the education bill may have been a decisive factor, especially at a time when House Democrats were exceedingly distrustful of their Senate colleagues and were essentially being forced against their better judgment to approve the Senate’s health care bill as the base law to which they would later make changes.
The student loan overhaul was very popular in the House. And because it would save tens of billions of taxpayer dollars by ending subsidies to private commercial banks, it offered a purely populist message at a time when public anger at Wall Street is running high and many liberals were disappointed that the health care bill would not include a public option, or government-run insurance plan.
Mr. Clyburn, who as the whip is the party’s main vote-counter, argued forcefully that the student loan measure would help generate support for the health care package.
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For some Democrats, the student loan plan is the hidden triumph in the health care fight, and the late-night meeting earlier this month was the crucial moment. “It was an fascinating conversation about what the Democratic Party represented,” one Democrat said.
“Members of Congress have a clear choice,” Mr. Miller said in a floor speech on Sunday night. We can side with the American people by making health insurance and college more affordable and accessible, while creating millions of jobs and reducing the deficit. Or we can side with the insurance companies and the banks. That’s it. That’s the choice. I’m siding with the American people.”
