Corinne Ramey

Weekend News Roundup: Mortgages and Grades and Health Insurance, Oh My!

The Times has a story in the Week in Review section on the "race gap" in subprime mortgage lending. "Last year, blacks were 2.3 times more likely, and Hispanics twice as likely, to get high-cost loans as whites after adjusting for loan amounts and the income of the borrowers, according to an analysis of loans reported under the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act," they write. In the same section, a story on subprime lending in college towns reports that college towns tend to have fewer high-interest rate mortgages than other metropolitan areas. There is also an editorial on the Mortgage Reform and Antipredatory Lending Act of 2007 in today's Times. For more about subprime mortgages, watch this video of DMI's Marketplace of Ideas Event featuring Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson.

No Child Left Behind is in the news again, with the Washington Post saying that the law has "fallen victim to political deadlock." The Times also ran a story on the education law, reporting that schools in New York City are "bracing themselves" for the release of school rating grades from the Department of Education. The Times writes, "Because the report cards will assess schools on how much individual students improve year to year, as well as on a complicated mixture of test scores and other factors, many of the grades are likely to upend longstanding reputations, casting celebrated schools as failures and lauding those that work miracles with struggling students. Some principals refer to the scores as a “scarlet letter.”

The State Children's Health Insurance Plan bill (SCHIP) is still stuck in legislative limbo, with The Hill and the Times reporting that the health care legislation is headed towards another presidential veto. Bush has said "that he would veto any SCHIP bill, regardless of its content, if it included a tobacco tax meant to pay for the expanded coverage of 10 million children." Although Democrats and many Republicans were hoping to reach a bipartisan compromise on the bill last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell forced a vote on the bill, leading to a House vote of 64-30. Democrats wanted more time for negotiations, with the hopes of winning over enough Republicans to override a presidential veto.

And on a lighter note, Salon.com has an amusing cartoon on government contractors. If you're looking for more analysis on the subject of federal contracts, you can check out what DMI's TheMiddleClass.org has to say on the Accountability in Contracting Act.

Posted at 10:03 AM, Nov 05, 2007 in Health Care | Media | Permalink | Comments (1)