Pelosi: GOP Plan on Student Loan Rate ‘Assault on Women’s Health’ - East Idaho News
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Pelosi: GOP Plan on Student Loan Rate ‘Assault on Women’s Health’

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GETTY P 101910 NancyPelosi?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1335516369688JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi railed against Republican efforts to offset the one-year extension of the 3.4 percent student loan rate by taking money out of a fund she believes is imperative to the “survival to women.”

Pelosi told reporters that she is whipping her caucus to oppose the GOP’s proposal.

“We will not support a bill that robs Peter to pay Paul, which ostensibly supports a middle-class initiative while making those very same people pay for it,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill.  “In order to pay for it, [House Republicans] are going to make an assault on women’s health, make another assault on women’s health, continue our assault on women’s health and pay for this with prevention initiatives that are in effect right now for childhood immunization; for screening for breast cancer, for cervical cancer; and for initiatives to reduce birth defects — a large part of what the Center for Disease Control does in terms of prevention.”

The Democratic leader said the funding that Republicans hope to use to pay for the extension, which will come up for a vote in the House on Friday, is integral to the “survival to women.”  House Speaker John Boehner has labeled the same prevention fund a “slush fund.”

“Well, it may be a slush fund to him, but it’s survival to women,” Pelosi said.  “It’s survival to women.   And that just goes to show you what a luxury he thinks it is to have good health for women.  We do not agree.”

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