I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Tuesday, December 22nd.

Let's keep understanding what's in this coronavirus relief bill and how it can help you and people you know.

One thing to note that we didn't get to yesterday is that there are some non-coronavirus

relief measures in there too that are significant.

According to the New York Times, there's a ban on surprise medical bills that happen

when patients unexpectedly receive care from an out-of-network health provider.

Instead of sending those charges to patients, hospitals and doctors will now need to work with health insurers to settle the bills.

This new law would also simplify the federal government's financial aid form known as FAFSA,

one of an array of sweeping education policy changes tucked into the agreement, says the Times.

Democrats secured significant college affordability provisions,

such as a significant expansion of the federal Pell Grant program for low-income students and also reversing

a decades-old ban on extending the grants to prisoners pursuing degrees behind bars. The deal also forgives

more than a billion dollars in federal loans for historically black colleges and universities, HBCUs.

The spending package also includes significant bipartisan deals to counter climate change and

promote clean energy.

The Times reports the first such legislation to pass Congress in nearly a decade.

So we'll talk about all that now and also the Democratic Party grappling with elections they lost,

as well as the big one they won, and Attorney General William Barr continuing to show

that he has some kind of bottom line versus Trump.

He reinforced again yesterday that there is not evidence that the presidential election was stolen

in a way that needs judicial, I should say, Justice Department action. And he reinforced the

apparent truth that the big cyber attack on our country is coming from Russia, even as President

...