NASHVILLE - Besides averting a government shutdown, President Donald Trump's belated signing into law of a massive $2.3 trillion coronavirus relief and government funding bill provides new protections for patients against "surprise" medical bills while strengthening financial support for historically black colleges and universities, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, says.
Other provisions in the law include simplifying the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for students and their families when applying for financial aid for college or graduate school, as well as restoring Pell Grant college aid to students who are incarcerated.
"Congress and President Trump have made sure that patients don't receive a surprise bill when they seek medical treatment," said Alexander, the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee chairman who leaves office Jan. 3 after 18 years in the Senate.
In a statement issued Sunday night after Trump, who initially refused to sign the legislation, announced he had approved the bill, Alexander said that "typically, one of five patients who go to an emergency room receives a surprise bill weeks later.
"This practice has been especially damaging during COVID-19 when patients receive large unexpected bills weeks after they go to the emergency room," Alexander said.
The senator added that the fruition of his nearly seven-year quest to simplify the FAFSA college aid application will slash the "unnecessarily complicated" annual forms filled out annually by some 20 million families.
It cuts the number of questions on the forms from 108 to 36, and thus will "remove the biggest barrier to helping more low-income students pursue higher education," Alexander said, adding, "former Governor Bill Haslam told me that the complex FAFSA form is the single biggest impediment to Tennesseans applying for two years of tuition free college."
It also will reduce the U.S. Department of Education's "lengthy financial data verification process by instead using data from the Internal Revenue Service" for FAFSA forms, according to Alexander's office.
Other provisions call for simpler Pell Grant eligibility guidelines for maximum and minimum awards, allowing many applicants to know if they will get a maximum or minimum grant to go to college. The provision will enable an additional 555,000 students to qualify for Pell Grants as well as allow an additional 1.7 million students to qualify to receive the maximum Pell Grant award each year.
Other provisions in the government funding bill forgive outstanding debt of historically black colleges and universities with loans under the federal Capital Financing Loan Program, as well as repeal a requirement that limits how long students can borrow under the subsidized student loan program.
In his initial refusal to sign the mammoth legislation, negotiated by the president's Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin with congressional Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and House, Trump cited the measure's failure to provide enough stimulus checks to Americans, saying the $600-per-person figure was too low. The president called for each check to be $2,000.
Contact Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com or 615-255-0550. Follow him on Twitter @AndySher1.