# What This Bill Does

This bill expands who can get their student loans forgiven through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which is a government program that erases remaining student debt for people who work in public service jobs for ten years. Right now, the program covers teachers, social workers, government employees, and some healthcare workers. This bill adds a specific group of healthcare workers who currently fall through the cracks: doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals who work full-time at nonprofit or public hospitals but are technically employed by a staffing agency or contractor instead of directly by the hospital itself.

Here's why this matters in practice. Many hospitals use staffing companies or contractors to employ their medical staff rather than hiring them directly. This is common in the healthcare industry. Currently, these contracted healthcare workers don't qualify for loan forgiveness even though they're doing the exact same public service work as their colleagues who are directly employed by the hospital. If you're a nurse or doctor working full-time at a nonprofit hospital through a staffing agency, you've been paying off your student loans without getting credit for your public service. This bill would change that, allowing you to count those years toward the ten-year forgiveness requirement, just like directly employed healthcare workers can.

The practical impact is straightforward: healthcare professionals working at nonprofit and public hospitals through contractors would finally be eligible for the same loan forgiveness benefits as other public service workers. After ten years of qualifying payments, their remaining student loan debt would be forgiven. This removes a financial penalty that currently exists for healthcare workers whose employment structure happens to be through a third party rather than directly through their hospital.

To amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to include certain employment as a health care practitioner as eligible for public service loan forgiveness, and for other purposes.

 <p>This bill makes certain full-time health care practitioners eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Specifically, the bill extends program eligibility to health care practitioners who work at a nonprofit or public hospital or facility but are prohibited under state law from being directly employed by the hospital or facility.</p>