Beginning Monday, people in the United States will be eligible for a special three-month enrollment period to sign up for health coverage under Obamacare.
“Starting today and running through May 15, 2021, we are opening HealthCare.gov for all Americans to have the opportunity to sign up for health insurance. Now, everyone will be able to use a special enrollment period to help secure some peace of mind as we work to beat the pandemic and strengthen and build on the Affordable Care Act,” according to a statement from the White House.
President Biden called the initiative “critical in the midst of a deadly pandemic,” citing the more than 470,000 fatalities related to COVID-19 since the outset of the pandemic.
The opening of the enrollment period follows an executive order Biden signed in January, setting the course to undo a Trump-era legal battle over Medicaid and Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act.
The order urged federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, to reexamine policies of the previous administration, such as the reinstatement of federal funding for international abortions.
Biden lauded the enrollment period, calling healthcare a “right, not a privilege.”
“As more Americans get covered, it is encouraging to see Congress moving quickly to pass the American Rescue Plan, which will ramp up testing, tracing, and our national vaccination program to get shots into as many arms as possible as quickly as we can,” he said.
The American Rescue Plan will lower the cost of health coverage and expand access to those in need and people who have become unemployed. It will also increase federal subsidies and decrease premiums to ensure that those who enroll do not pay more than 8.5% of their income when purchasing healthcare.
Coverage will be expanded to “an additional 4 million people” in lower-income brackets, giving states the opportunity to extend coverage for one year to low-income women who recently gave birth.
