(Headline USA) Democrat Joe Biden on Thursday ordered Obamacare‘s health insurance markets to reopen for a special sign-up window.
Biden signed an executive order directing the HealthCare.gov insurance markets to take new applications for subsidized benefits.
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.
As he signed an executive order to fund the murder of unborn babies, he declared he was reversing “my predecessor’s attack on women’s health.”
The most concrete short-term impact of Biden’s orders will come from reopening HealthCare.gov insurance markets.
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.
Created under the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, the marketplaces offer taxpayer-subsidized coverage.
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 depending on whether Democrats or Republicans control the White House.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.
