It’s at the House Rules Committee website and it’s about 151 pages. It’s in Congress-speak, but a couple things which I haven’t yet reported are clear:
• Student loan reform is indeed in the bill, probably to satisfy reconciliation requirements. The federal loan insurance program (the subsidies for banks to offer student loans, basically) has been terminated. That savings will get poured into mainly Pell Grants, along with some other perks for colleges.
• Two of the pay-fors in the bill, the change to the “black liquor” tax break that paper companies are getting and the codifying of the “economic substance doctrine,” also sit in the $154 billion extenders bill which the Senate passed last week. That will need to be fixed (for the extenders bill, that is).
• On p.149, you see that certain insurance reforms will get applied to more plans rather than allowing certain plans to be “grandfathered” in. In other words, “grandfathered” plans would be subject to the ban on lifetime limits, rescissions, etc.
• In the end, the bill gets $2.5 billion more for community health centers over five years, a total of $9.5 billion over those 5 years and $12.5 billion overall for community health centers and increases in personnel (p.151). This is the best money spent in the bill, by far, and would amount to a real sea change in community health centers and the universal care they provide. It should not be discounted as part of the bill.



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One thing that troubles me greatly is that the AP is now reporting that the Insurance Watchdog (the organization that was supposed to stop outrageous premium hikes) has been removed from the bill for reconciliation reasons. That was the only thing that could even attempt to control costs.