HEALTHCARE HIT ON HOOSIERS

Buried in the mountainous 2400 page healthcare legislation is the government takeover of student loans - loans now provided by banks and other private lenders. The largest national lender of student loans is Indianapolis-based SallieMae Corp. which currently employs 2300 Hoosiers in Indianapolis and Muncie. The public held corporation services ten million student loans nationwide and provides college savings plans for parents.
Already, more than one in ten Hoosiers is out of a job. It looks like Congressional Democrats could be adding to those unemployment roles come Sunday.
Democrats reason the federal government will save millions in subsidies to private lenders and the money saved can be used for more Pell Grants, which are freebies handed out to students from low and moderate income families to pay for college and technical school educations.
Small problem! Pell Grants have become highly politicized - often handed out by congressmen as part of constituent largess for their districts.
Is this to become the route for student loans? You make the call.
There will be one exception to banks and SallieMae losing their student loan business. It is a bank in North Dakota, thanks to Democrat Congressman Earl Pomeroy, who had an exemption for the State Bank of Bismark inserted into the bill. The insertion allowing the bank to continue making student loans was clouded in language that restricted the exemption to only state owned banks. Well, would you believe, the State Bank of Bismark is the only such state owned bank in the nation.
And so the corruption continues in the quest for votes as the 2300 employees at SallieMae are left to worry about whether or not they will have a job and the stockholders of the company to worry how much of a hit their holdings will take.
November can't come soon enough.