Senate candidate Joe Sestak talks college loans, universal health care
By: Health Insurance
Submitted: 2009-10-14 11:00:35 | Word Count: 719
Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa.,, who represents the state’s seventh district near Philadelphia, will run against Sen. Arlen Specter in the Democratic Senate primary. He stopped at Pitt to join the Pancakes and Politics breakfast in the Union this morning, sponsored by the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly.
The Pitt News: What are your plans to help college students who are struggling to pay for school in this economy?
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Joe Sestak: We are taking $87 billion and putting the money into Pell grants. They will increase to $7,000 by 2019 by taking this $87 billion this year and applying it across the next 10 years. We are also increasing the Perkins loans and access to Stafford loans. When you graduate you can no longer — no matter what — pay more than 15 percent of your income to pay back on taxes, so we don’t send you into bankruptcy.
TPN: Why do you believe an experienced senator like Arlen Specter doesn’t deserve another term?
Sestak: I don’t think he’s the man for the future. We have a senator who has done some decent things and I respect his public service, but the next 30 years are not like the last 30 years. When he gave his vote four-out-of-five times for President [George W.] Bush — 2,000 times total — for President Bush’s policies, that placed us in this savage recession. That vote gave 53 percent of tax cuts to the top 1 percent of wage-owners — the millionaires. I’m not a typical politician. Arlen Specter has spent 30 years in Washington. He switched parties because he couldn’t win, he said, on the Republican side, and he said he intended to vote just as he did as a Republican. I think that’s a wrong move. I think we need a leader who is accountable to principle, to really carve out for Pennsylvanians the type of legislation they need.
TPN: Are you afraid that in such a socially Republican state like Pennsylvania, most people will vote for the more conservative candidate?
Sestak: No, here’s what I believe: I consider myself a pragmatist, which just happens to place me square dab in the middle of the Democratic Party. I believe that everybody wants an educational opportunity. I believe people want health care. We may disagree on how to do it, but I believe in it, and I believe that they want small businesses to thrive. I think they want progress. But I think what’s more important than that is that leaders can’t just worry about getting elected. I don’t think they should worry about that at all. Politics will follow principle. It shouldn’t be the other way around ... I’m not worried about how this comes out because this is what’s needed.
TPN: With health care being such a controversial issue, what are your views on universal health care? You said before that you’re all for competition among schools. Are you for competition between insurance companies?
Sestak: Yes, that’s why I’m a big believer in the public option. I believe in a mandate that everyone should be covered. Without the public option, we don’t get the price reform that we need. In Pennsylvania, 70 percent of all private health care plans are controlled by two companies. It’s like the OPEC [oil] cartel. They dictate the price. By having another option out there that is funded by those who choose to join it, by their co-pays, by their deductibles, they don’t pay $23 million for salary for the CEO. The Department of Justice has criteria for what’s called non-competitive pricing markets. Ninety-two percent of all health insurance markets in Pennsylvania meet that criteria. That’s why we have to have a competition to discipline our costs.
