Biden expands ACA window to try and keep millions more low-income Americans insured

President Joe Biden is widening a critical window for low-income Americans to join Obamacare, in a move aimed at reinforcing a central element of his reelection bid: That he presided over a historic expansion of health care coverage.

Tens of millions of people eliminated from Medicaid would now have until Nov. 30 to sign up for new coverage under a plan to be announced Thursday by the Department of Health and Human Services and first shared with POLITICO — an extension from the July 31 deadline initially set for the special enrollment period.

The new timeline will apply to all those seeking coverage through HealthCare.gov, with officials encouraging state-run insurance marketplaces to adopt the change as well.

The move aims to minimize the number of people losing health insurance coverage in the run-up to the November election as a result of a nationwide purge of state Medicaid rolls. The mass disenrollments are happening for the first time since the pandemic, prompted by the expiration last April of a Covid-era policy meant to prevent vulnerable people from losing coverage amid the health crisis.

More than 19 million people have since been kicked out of the Medicaid program to date, exceeding the administration’s original projections that about 15 million would lose coverage overall. The vast majority of those Americans have lost their insurance for procedural reasons, not necessarily because they were newly ineligible.




https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/28/biden-americans-medicaid-00149491