Joe Biden opens up Obamacare exchanges for emergency three month sign-up in new slew of executive orders
Joe Biden on Thursday will take steps to reverse Donald Trump's healthcare policies and rebuild Obamacare – starting with reopening the HealthCare.gov insurance exchange for an emergency three-month sign-up period.
The president will sign two executive orders Thursday afternoon in an effort to get more Americans healthcare coverage and will remove Trump-era restrictions barring foreign aid from being used for abortion counseling.
'After four years of attempts to strip health care from millions of Americans, President Biden will sign two executive actions that will begin to restore and strengthen Americans' access to quality, affordable health care,' a Thursday statement from the White House previewing the executive orders stated.
The three-month 'special enrollment period' is expected to kick off February 15 and run through May 15, according to a White House official.
Biden's order will direct Health and Human Services to review existing regulation to open a federal enrollment period, and the department will announce later Thursday more specifics related to the three-month period on HealthCare.gov starting next month.
In order to permanently reopen enrollment, Biden would need congressional cooperation.
President Joe Biden will sign more executive orders Thursday related to healthcare, which will create an emergency three-month enrollment period for HealthCare.gov – the healthcare exchange website that was the brainchild of Obamacare
The White House previewed Biden signing a slew of new executive actions on Thursday
A few of Biden's directives will be related to abortion, and rolling back restrictions put in place during the Trump administration on the controversial productive rights issue
Many Americans lost their healthcare coverage when they lost their jobs as a result of the economic fallout from the coroanvirus pandemic. Here people wait in line in California to receive the COVID-19 vaccine
Trump tried several times during his presidency to repeal and replaceObamacare. His administration attempted to find different ways to limit the program or unravel it entirely.
A Supreme Court decision on the former president's final legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act is expected this year.
HealthCare.gov is a marketplace created from the Affordable Care Act during Barack Obama's presidency and offers widespread healthcare coverage partially paid for by taxpayer money. The goal was to create a place for Americans to be able to obtain healthcare coverage on the free market if they may not have otherwise been able to find a provider due to their medical history or preexisting conditions.
As insurance coverage has shrunk during the coronavirus pandemic, partially due to the massive amount of lay-offs, the Biden administration hopes to expand options for Americans – especially those who have had COVID-19 or are more susceptible to contracting the virus.
One of the orders signed Thursday will immediately reverse a federal policy that bars taxpayer money from being used for international health care nonprofits that abortion counseling or referrals.
The Mexico City Policy can easily get switched on and off with the stroke of a pen depending on whether Democrats or Republicans control the White House.
He will also instruct the Department of Health and Human Services to consider rescinding Trump's regulations barring federally funded family planning clinics from referring women for abortions.
The healthcare initiatives from Biden come as millions of Americans have either lost or been limited in their coverage options in the fallout from the coroanvirus pandemic
The ban on referrals led to Planned Parenthood clinics leaving the program.
The last action, and several other health and healthcare-related directives Biden plans to issue Thursday, could take months to carry out.
He will order HHS to reexamine a Trump administration policy that allows states to impose work requirements as a condition for low-income people to get Medicaid health insurance.
Work requirements have been blocked by federal judges, and the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the issue.
Biden also wants the department to review policies that could undermine protections for people with health problems, including a Trump administration rule that facilitated the sale of short-term health insurance plans that aren't required to cover preexisting medical conditions.
The abortion-related actions will bring Biden immediate praise from women's rights groups, as well as condemnation from social and religious conservatives. Under Trump's administration, pro-life advocates were able to work with the White House to try and rewrite federal policy related to the controversial issue.
The political pendulum is swinging back now that a Democrat sits in the Oval Office.
Biden also campaigned on repealing longstanding federal prohibitions against taxpayer funding for abortion, but a change of that magnitude to a group of laws known as the Hyde Amendment would require congressional approval.
The regulatory changes Biden is asking federal health officials to undertake aren't likely to happen overnight because hastily written rules are more easily overturned in court, as the Trump administration found out. Time and again, federal judges ruled that Trump officials ran roughshod over legal requirements for regulators, such as demonstrating they've considered all sides of an issue.
The idea of reopening Obamacare's health insurance markets has broad support, including from consumer groups, professional medical associations, insurers and business organizations.
Although the number of uninsured Americans has grown because of job losses in the coronavirus economy, the Trump administration resisted calls to reopen HealthCare.gov. Failure to repeal and replace Obamacare as he repeatedly vowed to do was one of the former president's most bitter disappointments. His administration continued trying to find ways to limit the program or unravel it entirely. A Supreme Court decision on Trump's final legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act is expected this year.
Since taking office one week ago, Biden has signed dozens of executive orders – many related to the COVID-19 crisis
The Obama-era health care law covers more than 23 million people through a mix of subsidized private insurance sold in all states, and expanded Medicaid adopted by 38 states, with Southern states being the major exception. Coverage is available to people who don't have job-based health insurance, with the Medicaid expansion geared to those with low incomes.
Of some 28 million uninsured Americans before the pandemic, the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation has estimated that more than 16 million were eligible for some form of subsidized coverage through the health law.
Experts agree that the number of uninsured people has risen because of layoffs in the coronavirus economy, perhaps by 5 million to 10 million, but authoritative estimates await government studies due later this year.
The special sign-up opportunity is only a down payment on health insurance for Biden, who has promised to build on Obama's health law to push the U.S. toward coverage for all.
For that, the president would need congressional approval, and opposition to the Affordable Care Act still runs deep among Republicans.