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Biden opens sign-up window for uninsured in time of COVID-19
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GoldenRod
10 years on LIF!
Member since 11/06 26792 total posts
Name:
Shawn
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Biden opens sign-up window for uninsured in time of COVID-19
https://apnews.com/article/biden-health-care-trump-policies-fd00846959bf2d42a6b540897064e8c1
WASHINGTON (AP) — 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 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.”
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The new “special enrollment period” will begin Feb. 15 and run through May 15, the White House said. 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.
The Biden administration has ample resources for marketing, said Karen Pollitz, a health insurance expert with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. The foundation estimates that the Trump administration left unspent about $1.2 billion in user fees collected from insurers to help pay for running the marketplaces.
“The reason it wasn’t spent is the Trump administration spent its time in office cutting services that support consumer enrollment,” Pollitz said. “All the while the user fee revenue was coming in, (but) they were not allowed to spend it on anything other than marketplace operations.”
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Allowing people to sign up with the ACA is a good thing, especially with so many unemployed.
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Posted 1/27/21 7:30 PM  |
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