Obama finalizes overhaul, loan change

March 31, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Finalizing two major pieces of his agenda, President Barack Obama on Tuesday sealed his health-care overhaul and made the government the primary lender to students by cutting banks out of the process.

Both domestic priorities came in one bill, pushed through by Democrats in the House and Senate and signed into law by a beaming president.

The law makes changes to the health-insurance- reform bill that he signed into law last week. Those fixes included removing some deals that had angered the public and providing more money for poorer and middle-income individuals and families to help them buy health insurance.

But during an appearance at a community college in suburban Virginia, he emphasized the overshadowed part of the bill: education.

In this final piece of health reform, Democrats added in a restructuring of the way the government handles loans affecting millions of students.

The law strips banks of their role as middlemen in federal student loans and puts the government in charge. The president said that change would save more than $60 billion over the next 10 years, which would be used to boost Pell Grants for students and reinvest in community colleges.