More time to get insured
Also reverses abortion restriction on foreign aid
Among other health-related executive orders that President Joe Biden signed on Thursday, people will now have more time to sign up for insurance on HealthCare.gov.
– President Joe Biden on Thursday ordered government health insurance markets to reopen for a special sign-up window, offering uninsured Americans a haven as the spread of COVID-19 remains dangerously high and vaccines aren’t yet widely available.
Biden signed an executive order directing the HealthCare.gov insurance markets to take new applications for subsidized benefits, something former President Donald Trump’s administration had refused to do. He also instructed his administration to consider reversing other Trump health care policies, including curbs on abortion counseling and the imposition of work requirements for low-income people getting Medicaid.
“There’s nothing new that we’re doing here other than restoring the Affordable Care Act and restoring Medicaid to the way it was before Trump became president,” Biden said as he signed the directives in the Oval Office. He declared he was reversing “my predecessor’s attack on women’s health.”
The actions were only the first steps by Biden, who has promised to build out former President Barack Obama’s health care law to achieve a goal of coverage for all. While Biden rejects the idea of a government-run system that Sen. Bernie Sanders has pushed for in his “Medicare for All” proposal, his more centrist approach will require congrespending
sional buy-in. But opposition to “Obamacare” runs deep among Republicans.
The most concrete short-term impact of Biden’s orders will come from reopening HealthCare.gov insurance markets as coverage has shrunk in the economic turmoil of the coronavirus pandemic. That’s an executive action and no legislation is required.
The new “special enrollment period” will begin Feb. 15 and run through May 15. It will be coupled with a promotional campaign and a call for states that run their own insurance markets to match the federal sign-up opportunity.
Biden also ordered the immediate reversal of a federal policy that bars taxpayer funding for international health care nonprofits that promote or provide abortions. Known as the Mexico City Policy, it can be switched on or off deWASHINGTON
on whether Democrats or Republicans control the White House. Abortion rights supporters call it the “global gag rule.”
His decision, while expected, was cheered by abortion-choice advocates and some humanitarian groups and denounced by anti-abortion groups.
The move also included a restoration of American funding to the U.N. Population Fund and withdraws the U.S. from an international accord that promotes anti-abortion policies.
Biden directed the State Department and Department of Health and Human Services to withdraw from the so-called Geneva Consensus, an October 2020 document signed by 34 countries that sought to promote anti-abortion policies and others deemed “profamily” worldwide.